Getting the right fit for your clients
Clive Ponder TEP
Director of CTT Group, Founder Owner and Director of Countrywide Tax and Trust Corporation Ltd, CTT Accountancy and CTT Law (SRA regulated firm and a Strategic Partner of CTT Group)
Which Trust is right for your clients' Wills?
The above is always an important consideration when meeting with clients for the first time, for a review or following a change in circumstances.
The first thing to consider is whether your clients indeed need a Trust at all. For virtually every client, the answer is going to be yes, but why might this be? Also, how do you explain this to the client so they can then make an informed decision based on the advantages a Trust may bring and then consider this along with the possible disadvantages? The latter usually only being the initial costs to implement it over a “standard” Will.
Once the client’s circumstances are considered, why should you then consider one Trust over the others?
It all comes down the level of ongoing control and protection that client wishes to have over their estate after they have gone which is usually the maximum amount and that often takes us to the route of Discretionary Trust/Trusts.
But why Discretionary Trusts? They don’t qualify for the RNRB, do they? In fact, yes they can and we can show you how!
What about Life Interest/Flexible Life Interest Trusts? Maybe for those clients with “just a house” again is a viable option, but how do they really work, what are the up sides and equally what are the downsides? When would you recommend these to your clients? We will explore this further during the upcoming Webinar!
What about bereaved minor Trusts and 18-25 Trusts? Often, they fall short of what parents are wanting to achieve in the first place, but you need to understand all the angles as to why. It’s all about giving the client options, understanding those options in a broad enough sense to be able to confidently speak about them. Our two part webinar series will help you do exactly that.
For wealthier married/civil partner clients, what do you do with the residue of the estate? Do you pass it all to the survivor for the spousal/civil partner exemption? There is another, often better, option which is a flexible Interest In Possession Trust, but that title is far more complex than the Trust itself. Why would you recommend this type of Trust to these types of clients? This Trust offers maximum flexibility and maximum protection for the next generations. We will explain in detail why in our next informative webinar.
Why should some clients leave a legacy of their business assets to a separate discretionary business Trust? There are many reasons but importantly, it may afford the estate a significant Inheritance Tax (IHT) advantage comparing to if they don’t! We will be covering all this and more in our next webinar!
It’s no good having an understanding of the Will Trust options available to your clients if you haven’t got the toolkit to facilitate and draft all of them for you as well as the backup from an experience 80 + strong team. The Countrywide Legacy Software and Countrywide Tax and Trust Corporation Ltd provides all this and more so make sure that you tune it to find out what you need to know!
Register your place on our webinar!
All Webinars commence at 10:00am and finish at 11:00am
Friday 12th June
Monday 15th June
Why not register early for Part 2?
Part two in July will be discussing how to select the most appropriate Trust for your client’s lifetime planning needs. This will be running on Friday 10th July and Monday 13th July. Register your free place today!
CEO & Co-Founder at Axess Law
4 年Awesome article Clive - really exemplifies the kind of work we do to understand and meet our clients' needs.