Your estate planning

Will your estate go to the people you want it to go to? Could your beneficiaries be in for an inheritance tax shock?

There are two strands to estate planning: making sure the right people benefit from your estate and ensuring you don’t leave them with an unwanted tax bill. Not planning means you relinquish control over who benefits, to the State, who will decide who gets what. And, if the value of your estate exceeds £325,000 (in the 2011/12 tax year), the State will claim 40% of any excess via inheritance tax.

Many people don’t think of themselves as rich and therefore make the mistake of thinking they can’t possibly have an inheritance tax problem. This may have been true a few decades ago but we now live in an age of widespread home ownership and inflated property prices: a house on its own can take you over the inheritance tax threshold. Fortunately there are steps you can take before you die so that after you die your beneficiaries don’t have to sell chunks of your estate to pay what can be a significant tax bill.

And, to make sure those beneficiaries are your chosen beneficiaries, rather than those decided by the State, you must have a valid will. There are no circumstances where you don’t need a will.

Contact us now to find out more.