Trusts

A trust is a way to ring-fence funds and assets, limiting their use to certain purposes or for the benefit of specified people. It can be a good idea to set up a trust if:

• you want to manage your assets in a tax-efficient way 
• you want to provide for the future of children, grandchildren or disabled persons.

Practical and personalised advice

Our highly-regarded private client team can give you practical advice on whether a trust is suitable for you and your family, and if it is, how to set one up. We always try to avoid unnecessary complexity in our advice and the solutions we recommend.

We can take you through all the steps of:

• using trusts in inheritance tax planning
• setting up trusts, and the tax implications of doing so
• appointing trustees, and trustees’ powers
• ongoing management of trusts
• making payments from trust funds or transferring assets into trust
• administration of trusts, for example, the preparation of annual accounts and tax returns
• how to wind up a trust and deal with the final distribution or transfer of assets, and the tax and accounting requirements.

Helping you choose the most appropriate trust

We can guide you through the different types of trusts and their usage, for example:

• nil rate band discretionary trusts used for inheritance tax planning
• trusts for children or grandchildren to safeguard inheritances
• trusts for disabled persons, which can be set up within their lifetime to make sure funds and assets are properly and responsibly managed.