Learning more about Wills and Trusts

The Wills and Trusts team, along with Mencap Trust Company, were invited to be ‘experts’ for a week in September for our Health Unlocked online community.

During this 'ask the expert' week, we encouraged families and carers to post questions about Wills and Trusts and we helped offer guidance to those who needed reassurance about this complex area of law . Here are some of the questions we received over the week and the answers we provided.

If you or your family need help or advice about Wills and Trusts, please contact us on willsandtrusts@mencap.org.uk

We are completely clueless about all this! I have a young family, and my youngest has a severe learning disability. Should setting up a trust be a concern right now because of his young age?

It can be daunting thinking about your child's financial future, but our Wills and Trusts service can help guide you.

We run free online Planning for the Future webinars where we invite a legal professional to talk about the types of trusts available and the steps you need to take to set a trust up. We also have free Wills and Trusts guides and a list of STEP qualified (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) legal professionals we can send you when you are ready to start putting provisions in place.

We would recommend signing up to one of our free webinars - this is a great starting point as the legal professional talks about the importance of writing a Will and setting up a trust, including what the implications could be if you do not have a trust set up. You can book your free place through our website.

Once you have been to a webinar, you can download our free Wills and Trusts guides - you are welcome to download them before attending but we do tend to find that people find the webinars very useful and then are more understanding of the guides when they read them. You can download our free guides here.

How would you advise going about setting up a trust for a disabled young adult?

You can contact the Wills and Trusts service - we can provide you with a list of specialist legal professionals in your area who are experts in trusts. They will be able to answer any questions you may have about the type of trust that is most suitable for your circumstances and how to set up a trust.

Attending one of our Planning for the Future webinars would be very helpful too. These are online and completely free to attend. We invite a legal professional to speak about setting up trusts, the steps you need to take to protect the financial future of your loved one with a learning disability , and the types of trusts available. There is also a Q&A short session at the end of the presentation for any questions you may have.

To book your free place please visit: mencap.org.uk/willsandtrusts.

For a list of specialist legal professionals and any further information please email: willsandtrusts@mencap.org.uk

Will my child’s benefits be affected if they're the only principal beneficiary of a discretionary trust?

Having a discretionary trust for your child, if set up correctly, will not affect their means-tested benefits. This is because a trust is not set up in their name and therefore the assets in the trust do not belong to them.

Should we have a trust account set up now?

You should set up a trust in your lifetime - meaning it is active now so you can add assets, or you can set up a trust in your Will – so it will become active when you pass away. A legal professional would be able to discuss the different options available to you.

We have free Wills and Trusts guides you can download on our website : mencap.org.uk/willsandtrusts. You may find our 'Wills and Trusts' guide and 'Guide to being a Trustee' useful.

We also run free Planning for the Future webinars - we invite a legal professional to come along to discuss the different types of trusts available as well as steps needed to put in place to ensure the financial future of your child is protected. You can book your free place at: mencap.org.uk/willsandtrusts.

Do you have a list of banks that are still offering current or savings accounts for trusts? They’re diminishing in number, we've already had to change bank once as they closed all trust accounts.

Sadly we are fully aware the amount of banks offering trust accounts is diminishing and we will be doing our very best to raise awareness of this issue as we know how important trust accounts are to families when setting up financial provisions for your loved one.

The legal professionals we work closely alongside always suggest to ask your own bank first just in case they can help. Otherwise the banks and building societies we’re aware of that currently set up trust accounts are as follows:

Metro Bank
Skipton Building Society
Carter Allen Private Bank

Please make sure you call them first to see if they offer this service or not - you will need to explain it is for a trust fund for a person with a learning disability.

You could also contact Mencap Trust Company, who manage trust funds for people with a learning disability, investing and protecting the money in a way that’s right for each family. They really get to know families and what a happy life looks like for their loved one – making the money available for the things they want and need. A not-for-profit, they offer low fees with no hidden costs. Mencap Trust Company has been working with families for nearly 50 years – find out how they can support yours on their website.

Because Mencap Trust Company act as trustee for a number of trusts they have developed a long-standing partnership with an investment management company that open accounts for individual trusts. This avoids the need to find a bank willing to open an account for each individual trust.

We made Wills over 20 years ago leaving our child money in a discretionary trust and not looked at them since. Is a discretionary trust still the best option? Our son is in supported living in a rented flat paid by housing benefit to the housing company.

It's good to hear you have already set up financial provisions for your child. We recommend you speak with a specialist legal professional and ask them to review your Will to ensure the discretionary trust is set up correctly as it was written some time ago. They will also be able to review if a discretionary trust is the right trust for your son.

You can either speak to the solicitor who originally set up the trust to review, or we can send you a list of specialist legal professionals who are qualified in this area of law.

If you would like this list please email us on willsandtrusts@mencap.org.uk and state which county you would like the list for.

Would it be better to have a legal professional as a trustee who could give advice rather than other family members? I’m concerned a family member may pass away before my child as well.

Your choice of trustee is completely up to you. You would need to speak to a legal professional to see if they would be a trustee alongside your son. Trust companies, such as Mencap Trust Company, act as sole trustee meaning they take on the full responsibility of the trust.

If you would like further information about Mencap Trust Company please visit www.mencaptrust.org.uk.

Is the discretionary trust the right trust ,or should we have set up the Disabled Persons Trust for our child with a learning disability?

You will need to speak to a legal professional to check you have the correct trust set up for your child. They will be able to advise the difference between the two and the criteria needed to be met to be able to set up a Disabled Persons Trust.

We are about to purchase a house through a discretionary trust for our child, who has a disability, to live in rent free. Is he liable for his own bills and contents insurance? Are the trustees only liable for maintenance and building insurance?

If the trust is purchasing a property, the trustees are completely responsible. They will need to decide how the property will be paid for, maintained and looked after. If someone will be living in the property, the trustees will be responsible for how that person will live in that property.

It would be advisable to speak with the solicitor you set the trust up with, how this can be done, and perhaps the clauses you will need to include to reflect this.

Mencap also have a very useful guide called 'Guide to being a trustee' which covers in detail, the exact responsibilities of trustees. The guides can be downloaded for free through our website.