Trust Management

Trust Management & Setup

A Trust is an arrangement that allows assets to be held for your beneficiaries by Trustees who will hold and administer the Trust assets for the benefit of the beneficiaries for its duration. Trusts create a separate legal entity for inheritance tax purposes and, if drafted properly, can shelter your assets from creditors and creditors of beneficiaries.

Trusts can be particularly useful for many reasons:

• To protect assets for future generations
• To look after assets for: a child or grandchild until they are older; those lacking maturity to manage their finances or; those lacking capacity
• Reduce or minimise inheritance tax liabilities
• To ensure the family home remains in the family and not assessed in future to pay for care home fees
• To create your own charitable trust for worthy causes
• Tax efficient way to pay school fees
• As part of your succession planning

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There are many different types of Trust and each can be treated differently for tax purposes. The two main types of Trust are Discretionary Trusts and Liferent Trusts.

Many trusts are set up as Discretionary Trusts which give the Trustees the discretion to distribute the income and capital within the Trust as they deem appropriate.

Liferent Trusts (sometimes called interest in possession trusts) are used where the beneficiary has a right to income generated from trust assets or the use of heritable property belonging to the trust.

There are other trusts such as bare trusts, personal injury trusts, bereaved minor trusts which may be more suitable in certain circumstances.

Oracle Law can set up a suitable trust and manage them efficiently with an annual review. Our trust management will involve the annual trust accounts, tax returns, a review of the trust assets and investments and any relevant changes in trust law.