ok something i enquired about and my conclusions were, i did discover there are no guarantees it will protect your assets 100% , the trust will come under very close scrutiny by the council and others and must be as water tight as poss done by a very competent firm., i was quoted this by a adviser of the co-op estate planning service , hope helps
At Co-op Estate Planning we believe in transparent fixed cost legal work. Straight forward wills are available from £150 Inc VAT(single) or £245 (‘mirror’ for a couple). However simple ‘mirror’ wills commonly fail to address the potential threat to the value of many estates from either Local Authority long-term residential Care means assessment (before death), re-marriage after 1st death (which can sometimes lead to your own children potentially being disinherited by a new spouse or their children), or Inheritance Tax (after second death of a married couple - for those with estates currently over £1M) - for all of these situations we have various Trust based solutions available in our wills from£795 (per pair).
Lasting Powers of Attorney
The legislation regarding the old Enduring Powers of Attorney was tightened up in October 2007 with the introduction of the current Lasting Powers of Attorney regime. There are now two types of LPA: One for Property and Financial Affairs and a separate document for Health & Welfare decisions. We advise clients to consider making both types of LPA, however not having a Property and Financial Affairs LPA can cause greater difficulties than not having the Health and Welfare version, as even joint bank accounts can potentially be frozen (under guidance issued to members of the British Banking Association) by a high street bank until such time as the court of protection has confirmed who is to have deputyship over your affairs. The deputyship process can also take anywhere between a few weeks and nine months to be granted and the costs can run in to several thousands of pounds. It is therefore much better to avoid these problems in advance by clearly setting out a Lasting Power of Attorney document appointing your spouse, children, family or other trusted people to act on your behalf to avoid a court process, should either of you lose capacity for any reason in the future. We advise that when created and completed these documents are immediately registered with the Office of the Public Guardian so that they are available for potential immediate use if required at any time thereafter.
We provide an LPA creation and registration service for our clients for £354 Inc VAT (Single) or £594 Inc VAT (for a couple), for each of the two types of documents. In addition we now also provide a separate Advanced Statement of Wishes document, allowing you to give detailed guidance to your attorney/s on any issues that are important to you e.g. regarding the management of your health care preferences, finances & wealth management, and even for digital assets (Facebook / Instagram / Llnkedin etc). Please note that on application for registration, the government’s Office of the Public Guardian additionally charge you a disbursement/processing fee of £82 for each LPA (although concessions may apply if a donor’s income is below £12,000 gross p.a., or in the event they are in receipt of certain state benefits).
