Lasting Powers of Attorney come in two forms – Property and Affairs and Personal Welfare. The first of these documents enable you to specify whom should help you manage your property and affairs should you need assistance. The second allows you to select one or more people to help make decisions about your care and treatment (including life-sustaining treatment), should you need assistance. These documents can make life much easier and cheaper for those who have to sort things out if you do need support. Think of these as a type of insurance policy which you take out when you’re fit and well – in the hope that you’ll never need them. Without these documents in place, your assets will be frozen until a court order can be obtained, causing further distress and incurring more expense at an already challenging time.
Advanced Decisions:
An Advanced Decision is a legal document whereby you can specify now what treatment you’d refuse if you were lacking capacity to make that decision at the time. Advanced Decisions are sometimes known as “Living Wills”.
Pilot and Lifetime Family Trusts:
Pilot Trusts are used to enable some death benefits (such as an employer’s death in service benefit) to be used flexibly and yet not form part of your estate for inheritance tax purposes. Lifetime Family Trusts take several forms. They can in some cases reduce tax and probate costs as well as protecting assets from being sold to pay for care home fees.
ClientCare and SafeStor Services:
Safestor and ClientCare are our storage and update services. We use a dedicated archive facility for our document storage. This has inert gas fire protection, 24 hour CCTV and all personnel are vetted to BSIA standards. ClientCare includes free updates to your Will(s), so long as your Will remains within the same level of complexity.
