The Problem What we are talking about here is care home fees. Residential care is expensive. Even if you have no special needs, fees of £1,000 a week are common in the South East. At some £50,000 per year, this can run through your capital very fast. Many people feel this is unfair, and that…
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Basic principles – the Three Steps First, if you own something jointly with someone else, then property law may operate automatically to pass your share to the surviving co-owner/s, outside your estate. This applies only to joint assets held under a ‘joint tenancy’. If an asset is jointly-owned under a ‘tenancy-in-common’, then your share does…
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You have been doing some reading and your home is clearly the most valuable asset in your estate and if you gift it to your children, your estate will not have an expensive Inheritance Tax bill to pay. Or perhaps you have a number of properties and are thinking of giving your second home to…
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DON’T PANIC. Everything seems scary and confusing, but there is very little that has to happen quickly and, apart from those few things, everything else can wait until you feel up to dealing with business. Register the death The first thing you have to do, and do within five days, is register the death. This…
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You may be tempted to use an online Will template and save the cost of going to a solicitor. The problem with that is, that there is a good chance you will cost your family much, much more than you save in solicitor’s fees. A recent survey shows that 38,000 families a year suffer because…
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What would happen if you were to die today, or if you were suddenly incapacitated with COVID, or after a car accident or a stroke? How would those close to you pick up the pieces? More and more of our lives are conducted online, and this is starting to cause serious problems, and real distress,…
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In these uncertain times, many of us are turning our attention to our personal affairs. One important aspect of this is taking stock of our personal circumstances and making or updating Wills. Something which might have been low on the ‘to do’ list in our ‘pre-lockdown’ lives has suddenly become extremely important, especially as family…
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It was announced yesterday that the government plan to replace the flat £155 probate fee with a sliding scale of fees of up to £6,000 in some cases, has been cancelled. “For the second time in less than three years, the government has announced huge, discriminatory, and arguably illegal increases in probate fees, with the…
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The number of unmarried couples living together has risen by 25% over the last ten years, to 3.4 million, according to a study just published by the Office of National Statistics. “Unmarried couples with children risk leaving their children an unnecessary Inheritance Tax bill” warns Colemans’ senior partner Michael Cutler. “For a couple who are…
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The government’s controversial move to raise probate fees dramatically, by almost 4,000% for larger estates, will not come into force on 1st April as planned. Because of the disruption to Parliamentary routine caused by the Brexit debates, the procedure to bring the new fees into force has been held up, pushing back the start date…
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