Wills and trusts
Introduction: How can you pass on your estate?
There are four ways in which assets can be passed to the intended beneficiaries.
- Joint tenancy
- By a lifetime gift absolutely
- Under a will
- By a lifetime gift to trustees of a trust
Those assets under joint tenancy pass automatically to the survivor e.g. jointly held bank account or property.
Absolute lifetime gifts are a simple way of ensuring that assets are passed to intended beneficiaries but ownership and, more importantly, control of those assets is lost.
Wills allow individuals to appoint and proportion their estate to those whom they wish to benefit. If no will has been made the individual is deemed to have died intestate and the intestacy rules will dictate to whom assets are distributed.
When assets pass under trust there is an extra amount of control even after the death of the individual. Often trusts are used to pass assets on to those who are minors, as this is a way of passing assets on to them without them having full control. Trustees are the legal owners of the trust property and manage it for the benefit of the beneficiaries