Safeguarding your home from future care costs
MANY couples take the traditional route of drafting “mirror wills” in order to safeguard their family’s future. This seemingly secure plan can often lead to consequences for protecting your home from the burden of future care costs.
Legal expert Paul King offers an alternative legal strategy to ensure the financial well-being and security for your loved ones.
- Download a brochure here to find out more
For many couples, mirror wills are a common choice.
Initially, they direct everything to the surviving spouse and then to the children.
But the stark reality many don’t realise is, that your children might inherit far less than you intended, or possibly worse and inherit nothing at all.
However, if the surviving partner needs care, their assets may quickly diminish to meet the government’s care cost threshold. In this instance, leaving your share of the home to your spouse might not always be the wisest choice.
That’s where April King Legal comes in, introducing the April Will, which creates a protective trust for your children and loved ones.
Paul King, the head of April King Legal, has personally experienced the consequences of this process within his own family when his grandmother’s six-year care plan depleted her estate.
His grandfather had left everything to her in his will and after her passing, her children received only the statutory lower limit.
In the April Will, each partner designates their half of the house for their children, with a condition that it cannot be accessed during the surviving spouse’s lifetime.
This clever advantage means that it shields this share from future care fee means tests, providing flexibility for the surviving spouse. It also means that your children will have to patiently await their inheritance, just as they would in a traditional mirror will.
This is different to transferring property ownership to children during your lifetime to evade care fees which can backfire due to the Community Care Act 1990.
In short, transferring your assets to your children in your lifetime to an Asset Protection Trust or Living Trust can be deemed deliberate deprivation of assets by the local authority which means they will ignore the transfer as if you owned it, or worse still make a claim to recover the asset from the trust.
This is not the case with an April Will as you are only protecting the half share of the first to die, the one who did not receive care and so there is no “deprivation” of that share.
Further, an April Will guarantees the surviving spouse’s right to live in the house for their lifetime and the survivor can still move if that’s what they want to do.
April King Legal’s comprehensive guide simplifies asset protection complexities, advising against transferring ownership or relocating to your children’s property.
Instead, the guide outlines the legal steps couples can take to protect their hard-earned assets.
It also clarifies the role of Lasting Power of Attorney and the protective role of April Wills in securing inheritances against unforeseen circumstances such as divorce, remarriage or financial woes.
- Download a brochure here to find out more
What are April Wills® and how do they work?
An “April Will” is a legal document or will, designed to offer an innovative approach to estate planning, this is drafted specifically to protect a family’s assets, particularly the family home, from future care costs.
What is the difference between a Mirror Will and an April Will?
A Mirror Will typically leaves everything to the surviving spouse and then to the children.
An April Will places each partner’s share of the home in a protective trust for the children when the first spouse dies, ensuring it is shielded from future care fee means tests while allowing the surviving spouse flexibility to live in the home.
The survivor continues to own their own half-share of the home.
How to avoid using your assets to cover care home fees?
To prevent assets from being used for care home fees, April King Legal considers strategies like creating protective property trusts within a new April Will.
April Wills can also safeguard assets while allowing flexibility for the surviving spouse and protecting your children’s inheritance.
- Download a brochure here to find out more