Safeguard Your Assets Now, Control Them Forever
Trusts & Asset Protection: Gain Ultimate Control Over Your Legacy
A Will alone provides limited protection—it only takes effect after you pass away. A Trust is the definitive legal tool that ensures your family’s inheritance is protected during your lifetime and for generations to come. Trusts allow you to safeguard assets, control how and when funds are used, and protect loved ones from risks like divorce, bankruptcy, and long-term care costs.
Introducing the Family Asset Protection Trust (FAPT)
The FAPT is a vital planning tool that makes sense for any adult with assets and the mental capacity to enter a contract. It allows you to safeguard your home and assets for your family’s future.
Key Benefits of a FAPT
Mental Capacity Protection: Trustees you chose can administer assets, avoiding OPG restrictions.
Ultimate Protection: Assets are protected from sideways disinheritance, divorce claims, and bankruptcy.
Maintain Control: You do not lose control; you remain a Trustee, making the day-to-day decisions.
Flexibility: You can still move home if required; the Trustees manage buying and selling property.
Avoid Probate Costs: Significantly less costly than the 3.5% to 6% of estate value charged by solicitors for Probate.
Planning Longevity: FAPTs can last for up to 125 years, benefiting multiple generations.
The Family Asset Protection Plus Trust (FAPT+)
The FAPT+ is our most comprehensive trust, designed to maximize family protection and tax efficiency:
- RNRB Eligibility: Can ensure your estate benefits from the Residence Nil Rate Band (RNRB),(potential tax saving up to £140k).
- Beneficiary Estate Shield: Assets held in a FAPT+ do not add onto your beneficiaries’ personal estates, reducing their own future Inheritance Tax bill.
- Protection: Provides powerful protection against Taxation, Divorce, Remarriage, Creditors, and Care costs.
- Tax Efficiency: NO tax to pay on entry, at the 10-year anniversary, or on exit during the Settlor’s lifetime.
- Probate Access: Can allow loved ones to avoid probate delays, granting access to Trust assets when needed.
- Mental Capacity: Useful for clients who have lost capacity, allowing Trustees to administer assets without OPG restrictions.
Trust planning is too serious to gamble with your family’s future.
“John and Susan had both been married before and had children from previous relationships. Their Wills directed that, on the first death, the estate would pass into a Discretionary Trust of Residue. This allowed the survivor to benefit during their lifetime but ultimately ensured that each side’s children received their intended inheritance. The trust structure provided flexibility and control, avoiding unintended disinheritance if the survivor remarried”
The Discretionary Trust of Residue (DTR)
“Flexibility and protection for your estate after death“
A Discretionary Trust of Residue (DTR) is a trust created within a Will that comes into effect on death. Unlike lifetime trusts, it does not protect assets during your lifetime or provide inheritance tax benefits when it is set up. Instead, it gives your trustees the power to manage
and distribute your estate flexibly after your death, according to your wishes and your beneficiaries’ circumstances at the time.
This type of trust is particularly valuable for families who want to retain control and protect their estate after death —for example, where there are vulnerable beneficiaries, blended families or concerns about future remarriage, divorce, or creditors.
Key Benefits of a DTR
Allows you to provide for a surviving spouse while still protecting your children’s eventual inheritance
Offers flexibility to respond to beneficiaries’ needs and changing family circumstances after your death
A DTR is cost effective based on the price of an asset trust
Allows trustees (up to 4 people) to manage funds and distribute them when appropriate rather than paying everything out immediately
The trust lasts for 125 years or until the funds are dissolved
You choose how much to ringfence. You can release up to 50% on your passing or choose to defer the amount until the passing of your partner (whether married or not)
A DTR will benefit both married and unmarried couples as your wishes are ringfenced by trust powers upon the first or second death ensuring that your wishes become a reality through trust powers and covered by the trust act
Helps protect vulnerable or financially inexperienced beneficiaries
Can shield assets from divorce or creditor claims against beneficiaries
Helps prevent sideways inheritance ensuring assets stay within the family line and cuts out inheritance tax
How a DTR Works
Step by Step:
Creation – The DTR is included in your Will. You decide who the trustees and potential
beneficiaries will be.
Activation – The trust is activated on your death (or sometimes on the death of the second
person, depending on how the Will is drafted).
Residue passes into trust – Once specific gifts, debts and taxes are dealt with, the remaining
estate (‘residue’) is transferred into the DTR.
Trustees take control – Your chosen trustees manage the trust in line with the letter of
wishes you leave. They decide how and when funds are distributed to beneficiaries.
Ongoing management – The trust can continue for up to 125 years, giving flexibility to
support multiple generations.
Clients can give a beneficiary, such as a partner or family member, the right to live in the
property for a specific period or for the rest of their lifetime. This ensures that your loved
one’s living arrangements remain secure and provides ample time to make future housing
decisions without sudden disruption.
Why Consider a DTR?
A DTR is particularly useful in situations such as:
- Blended families or second marriages – ensuring children from previous relationships are
ultimately provided for. - Vulnerable or disabled beneficiaries – assets can be managed on their behalf without
affecting benefits or exposing them to financial risk. - Beneficiaries with unstable finances – assets remain protected if a beneficiary is going
through divorce, bankruptcy or other issues. - Desire for long-term control – trustees can make decisions based on future circumstances
rather than everything being fixed at the date of death. - Ring-fencing family wealth – keeping assets within the family for future generations.