Wills, trusts, powers of attorney and nominations — coordinated rather than collected.
Making sure it ends up where you intended
Estates go wrong less often through tax than through mismatch: a will saying one thing and a pension nomination saying another, a trust nobody has reviewed since it was created, an attorney appointed who can no longer act. The work here is coordination — making sure the documents, the nominations and the ownership all point the same way, and that somebody can act if you cannot.
Typical matters
Who we act for
Families with children from more than one relationship, people holding property jointly who have never checked how it is held, anyone whose pension nomination predates their current circumstances, and people arranging matters for a vulnerable relative.
Speak to an adviserIn more detail
The common failure is not a tax bill. It is a set of documents that contradict each other: a will drafted before a second marriage, a pension nomination naming someone who has not been in the picture for fifteen years, a property held in a way nobody checked, a trust set up for a purpose that no longer exists.
Each document looked right when it was made. Nobody read them together afterwards. Reading them together is most of the work, and it regularly finds something.
Pensions and many life policies are not governed by a will. They pass according to the nomination held by the provider, or at the trustees’ discretion guided by it. A will leaving everything to a current spouse does not redirect a pension nominated to a former one.
This is the single most frequently out-of-date document we encounter, because nothing ever prompts a review. It takes minutes to check and it is worth doing today rather than adding it to a list.
Property held jointly can pass automatically to the survivor regardless of what a will says, or it can pass under the will as a defined share. The two produce very different outcomes, particularly in blended families where the intention is often to provide for a spouse during their lifetime while preserving something for children from an earlier relationship.
Which applies is a matter of record and can be checked. Changing it is possible but is legal work.
A lasting power of attorney can only be made while the person making it has capacity. After that the route is a court application: slower, more expensive and more intrusive, at exactly the point a family is least able to cope with any of those things.
It is the clearest example in this area of a task where acting early costs very little and acting late costs a great deal. Registering one does not hand anything over — it means somebody can act if a day comes when you cannot.
Before we speak
The point of this exercise is to read everything together. Bring the documents even if you are confident they are fine — the contradictions are rarely obvious from inside any single one of them.
If you have none of it
People often delay a first conversation until they have assembled a file. That delay costs more than the missing paperwork does. Tell us what you know, and we will work out what needs finding — and in what order.
Speak to an adviserPlain English
The words that turn up in this area, written for people who are not lawyers — because that is who has to make the decisions.
Common questions
Probably yes. Without one the intestacy rules decide, and they do not always produce what people assume — particularly where there are children, or where a couple are not married.
A will governs your estate. A nomination tells a pension or policy provider who should receive money that passes outside the estate. They are separate documents and they can easily contradict each other.
No. Will drafting, trust deeds and powers of attorney are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and are referred to a solicitor. We make sure the financial plan and those documents agree.
When something changes — marriage, separation, a birth, a death, a house move, a business sale — and otherwise every few years. The documents do not update themselves and nothing prompts you.
That is one of the clearer cases for a trust, so that money is managed rather than handed over at an age or in a condition where that would not help. The structure is a legal matter; what the trust should hold and how it should be invested is advice.
There are structures intended to address exactly this, with trade-offs in cost and control. It is a common concern and a reasonable one to raise directly.
Important
Will writing, trust drafting and powers of attorney are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Where a matter needs a solicitor we say so and refer it.
Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change in future. Statements here describe the rules as they generally apply, not advice on your position.
Inheritance tax planning usually involves giving up access to money or control over it. Some arrangements take years to become effective and cannot easily be reversed.
How it works
A call at our cost to understand what you are trying to do and tell you plainly whether we can help. Sometimes the honest answer is that you do not need advice at all, or not yet — and we would rather say that than bill you for finding out slowly.
Before any work starts you get the scope, the approach, who will do the work and what it will cost, in writing. Independence means we are paid by you rather than by a provider, and you should be able to see exactly what you are paying and for what.
A written recommendation you can read, question and keep, setting out what we suggest and why — including the options we rejected. Then a review at agreed points, testing the plan against what actually happened rather than restating it.
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