Legal services for private clients
Our collaborative approach means we’re able to bring expert legal support to the opportunities and challenges you face, whether you’re a private individual or a corporate client. Our legal team focus on private client legal services and are experts in the following areas for individuals.
Probate and estate administration
Executors’ duties are many and onerous. These include ascertaining the value of the deceased’s estate; researching lifetime gifts; and calculating and paying inheritance tax. If they do not carry out the role correctly, executors can ultimately be personally liable for an estate’s tax liability, expenses or legacies.
Executors must also manage complicated family relationships that frequently come to the surface on the death of a family member.
Our probate specialists advise on these duties, providing an expert and professional presence at a difficult time.
Wills and inheritance tax planning
Wills allow you to control to whom your assets pass on your death. If you do not have a Will, government rules dictate who inherits your estate. The structure of the Will can account for family dynamics, such as where a testator with children has remarried.
A Will is essential if you have business assets; foreign assets or your estate is likely to incur an inheritance tax charge.
We take time to understand your circumstances and wishes, and make sure your Will reflects these.
Creation, interpretation and dissolution of trusts
The primary use of a trust is to protect your assets. For example, if you would like a family member to benefit from your assets but it would be inappropriate to give anything to them outright, a trust can hold the assets and use them for the family member’s benefit.
It is important that you only transfer assets to a trust that you are sure you do not need yourself.
We can explain why this is important and how to structure the trust to suit your circumstances.
Lasting Powers of Attorney
Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs) are powerful documents. They allow you to give someone the right to take decisions relating to your care and to enter into transactions on your behalf. For example, if you were unable to do so, your attorney could choose a care home for you and sell your home in order to pay for this. Without an LPA in place, someone seeking to make a decision on your behalf would have to make an application to court, which is a lengthy and more expensive process.
We can help you choose an appropriate attorney, explain what they are able and unable to do on your behalf, and prepare the forms for you.
