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If you order anything online you can pay by 5 interest free monthly payments by Direct Debit

Single Standard Wills £125 each NO VAT

 Printed & Thermally Bound & Delivered

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A Pair of 'Protective Property Trust Wills' £550 for both Wills NO VAT

(To help protect your home from Care fees)

(Includes Tenancy Severance to Tenants in Common)

Printed & Thermally Bound & Delivered

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A Pair of 'Lasting Powers of Attorney' £375 for both Health & Finance NO VAT

 + £82 each LPA to register with the 'Office of the Public Guardian'.

Printed/Fully completed/ Delivered and ready for you to sign.

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All Wills are sent by email (PDF) for you to approve before I print/bind/post

to you, all work ordered completed for you within 7 days.

All signing instructions and optional storage prices with your Will(s)

Payments by Bank Transfer & Credit/Debit Card or by monthly DDM

Need to talk? talking is free 01480 290060

(If answer machine please leave message as I am often on a call)

PROTECT YOUR HOME FROM CARE FEES

There was hope then, on Monday 29th of July 2024, The new Labour Chancellor, Rachel Reeve announced on live television in the House of Commons that the proposed CAP on ‘CARE COSTS’ of £86,000 has been SCRAPPED.

Q) What does this mean for families? Put in simple terms, if you need Long-Term Residential Care at the end of your life, you will have to pay the bill yourself and everything you hoped to leave your children will be gone, down to the last £23,250. A lifetime of saving gone!

Q) How much does a week in a care home cost? Currently in St Neots and local areas the lowest advertised cost per week I could find was £1,350 this was for the lowest level of care, in cases where Dementia and other serious problems were present the costs rose to in the region of £2,000 per week (Over £100,000 per year).

Q) How can I legally help you protect your home? There are several ways but the first you should consider is a pair of ‘Protective Property Trust Wills’ (Cost, approximately 3 days in a care home - £550 to the rest of us). These Wills protect half the house when the first spouse dies, so that share is safe from care fee assessment by the Local Authority.

Richard's Comment: From talking to hundreds of clients over the years, the thing that really annoys them, is that if you have no assets and need care, the Local Authority are obliged to provide funding, (See Age UK Factsheet 41).

So effectively, if you have been careful with your money, you are punished, and if you have wasted your money you get help!

I am not political, but I think with this new Labour government, if you are 60+ you need to button down the hatches and prepare.

Please call me for a chat and request my A4 Brochure on protecting your home. Regards Richard

Scenario: Unfortunately true in thousands of homes in England & Wales Every Year.

Bob & Ann 72 owned their home worth £380,000 which they wanted to leave the children. Bob & Ann thought they had planned well but after Bob died his wife developed dementia and Ann was moved to a ‘nursing’ home, her house was sold, and the money used to fund the £8,000 per month ‘nursing’ home costs.

Ann lived in the ‘nursing’ home for 4 years, and over £350,000 of her money was spent on her care, when Ann died only £28,000 was left, stories like this are common.

The sad thing is Bob and Ann ‘knew about’ the benefits of ‘Protective Property Trust Wills’ but ‘time after time’ kept ‘Putting Off’ upgrading their old Wills. With 'Protective Property Trust’ Will’s Bob & Ann would have protected 50% of the value of their home.

It is a fact that that with many of us living until we are much older, more of us will end our lives in care. If this was not bad enough we also have to pay for this care if funds are available, this means losing your home and everything you have worked hard for (Until only £23,500 is left) and hoped to leave your children. On the other hand, if you have wasted your money, spent it down the pub or just never bothered to work then the local authority will pick up most of the cost. Is that fair on you?. 

                                                                                                                                                          See Long Term Care video below.

The good news for couples living in England and Wales who jointly own the family home is that there is a way to protect at least half of the value of the property, so this can eventually be passed on to the children.

This is achieved by writing a pair of Wills in such a way that it puts half the family home into a trust when the first spouse or civil partner dies, the terms of the trust mean that the surviving spouse or civil partner can continue to live in the property for the rest of their life, but they won't own the entire house in their sole name, these type of Wills are called a Protective Property Trust Wills (£550) and they come as a pair.

By preparing the Wills & the Land Registry ownership of your home to what is know as 'tenants in common' the value of half the home is ring-fenced by the trust upon the death of the first spouse, this means it isn't taken into account if the surviving spouse is financially assessed for residential care home fees, because that half is owned by the trust. The other half is owned by the surviving spouse or civil partner, so this will be taken into account by the local authority.

Under some circumstances we can protect 100% of your home. Please ask.

Tenants in Common v Joint Ownership

Properties owned by more than two people can be owned as ‘joint tenants’ or ‘Tenants in Common’ Here is what the terms mean, and the legal details you need to know.

Understanding co-ownership: When I meet with clients to discuss a deceased relative’s estate I ask if they know if the property they co-owned with their husband/wife was owned as ‘joint tenants’ or ‘tenants in common’. I am often told that they own the freehold, so they are not ‘tenants’ or simply that they are both on the title deeds. There is a misunderstanding as to the type of ownership that is possible between co-owners of property and what this means if one of the co-owners dies.

Joint tenants or tenants in common? Under property law, a property which is owned by two (or more) people can be owned in either of two ways – as ‘joint tenants’ or ‘tenants in common’. In both cases, the names of all the owners appear on the title deeds but the two different ways of owning property together have significantly different effects when one of the owners dies.

What happens when a joint tenant dies? Where a property is owned as joint tenants, when one of the owners die the property automatically pass to the surviving owner, regardless of what the Will of the deceased owner says. This is known as a ‘right of survivorship’. This is the most common way a property is owned by husband and wife or civil partners. On death of one of the owners the survivor simply needs to provide a death certificate to the Land Registry and the title deeds will be changed into the sole name of the surviving joint owner who then becomes a sole owner.

What happens when one of the tenants in common dies? Where a property is owned as tenants in common, this means that each owner has their distinct share of the property. In the absence of a document which lists what share is owned by which owner it is assumed that each owner owns an equal share. In the case of a husband and wife who own their property as tenants in common, they will be deemed to own 50% each. With this type of ownership, there is no right of survivorship, so the property does NOT automatically pass to the surviving owner but instead will pass according to the deceased owner’s Will.

Why own a property as tenants in common?

1) As care home fee planning if a deceased spouse’s share of the house passes to the surviving spouse, that surviving spouse then owns 100% of the house which can, in turn, be subject to assessment for care home fees. Whereas, if the first spouse to die leaves their share to another family member or to a trust, the surviving spouse will only have their half share of the house for assessment for care home fees, leaving the first half out of the assessment.

2) Un-married co-habitees who want to protect their share of the property in case they split up or do not want their co-habitee to inherit their share of the house in the event of death.

3) For a married couple who have children from a previous relationship and they want their share of the property to pass to those children instead of passing to the new spouse (but allow the new spouse the right to live in the property for the rest of their life, known as a life interest).

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