Life Interest Wills and Trusts

Life interests have a number of uses and one of our specialist solicitors would be happy to discuss these with you and how they may be used in planning your estate.

Second Marriages & Life Interests

Many people who have remarried wish to leave their estate to their children from a previous marriage whilst still providing for their current spouse.

A life interest trust can offer a solution to this problem.

With a standard (non life interest) Will, if you leave everything to your new partner your assets would become theirs when you die. When they die those assets would form part of their own estate and would then be passed to their beneficiaries, who may be their own children, thus depriving your children of any inheritance.

The opposite scenario is that you leave everything to your children on your death, and your current spouse may then be left with no assets and nowhere to live.

Both of these risks can be avoided with a 'Life interest Will'. The family home is a perfect example of how this can be used. You may wish to leave the property to your children eventually, but still enable your current partner to live in it after you have died.

With a life interest trust you can give your partner a life interest in the property, meaning that after your death they can live in the property until they die (or remarry if you wish), at which point the property passes to your children or other beneficiaries.
In this way you can protect both your partner and eventual beneficiaries.

Some benefits of a Life Interest Trust

You retain control of the ultimate destination of your assets whilst still enabling your partner to benefit from those assets in their lifetime or until they remarry.
Care home fee mitigation - assets held within a life interest trust are ring fenced from your spouse’s assets and cannot be taken into account when assessing your partner for care home fees, thus protecting those assets for the eventual beneficiaires.
Protection against bankruptcy - assets held in the trust cannot be taken in the event of your spouse's bankruptcy as they have no right over the capital.

What assets can form part of a Life Interest Trust?

Property.
Cash – your spouse can benefit from the income generated by cash assets whilst the capital itself is protected by the trust.