Miller Reeves Ltd is a specialist Will, Trust and Inheritance Tax Planning company with offices in both Birmingham and central London. Our services are primarily aimed at helping clients to Protect their Wealth, both today in their lifetime and also for the next generation.
We provide a full suite of Estate Planning services which go above and beyond just a Will. Using products like a Lasting Powers of Attorney, Deeds of Severance, Trust’s can help to protect Property, Money and more from a number of threats. For more information visit our
Whatever your age or circumstances, the chances are that you or your Beneficiaries may face one or more Threats to the value of your Estate. These threats may come in the form of;
Inheritance Tax
This is a Tax of 40% on your Estate above the Nil Rate Band of £325K per person payable before Beneficiaries Inherit Your Estate. Although the limit is increasing, this increase is only applicable on the main residence if left to direct issue (children). If they are successful in their own right, then their children may face further Taxation on their Inheritance thus Generational Inheritance Tax can erode a significant proportion of family wealth through the generations.
Care Home Fee’s
With an Estimated 1 in 3 people needing professional care at some point in their lives, funding that care could become a problem which erodes the value of your Estate quicker than you may think. Current legislation means that if you have assets greater than £23,750 in value, then you may be asked to fund your care using these assets.
Bankruptcy/Creditors
Imagine a situation where your beneficiaries have just inherited your Estate. They may show an Entrepreneurial spirit and may decide to open a business. However what would happen if that business were to fail? Or perhaps they are not as good at managing money as you would like….It’s understandable that this could happen especially where younger beneficiaries find themselves inheriting a large sum of money. Thankfully you can plan ahead and minimise the prospect of this happening.
Divorce
Nearly half of all marriages ended in Divorce today. With a Will in place which leaves assets to children in an unprotected manner, you could find that you’re hard earned assets such as property or money is being directed towards the outlaws in a Divorce! Wouldn’t it make sense to be able to leave these assets in a way that gave your children some protection?
Marriage After Death
M.A.D. for short! Also known as Sideways Dis-Inheritance, this is a very common occurrence especially with those partners who have jointly owned property. When one partner passes away before the other, the remaining partner usually inherits all assets 100%. Now if the remaining partner was to re-marry and that marriage ended in Divorce OR they were to pass way before the new partner, then you could find that your children un-intentionally lose out on their rightful inheritance.
Neither. We are specialist Estate Planners. A Solicitor or Financial Adviser may be able to draw up a basic Will for you however they may or may not be able to provide additional Estate Planning. As you can read from above, there are many Threats to your Estate which a Will may not protect you from in isolation. Given that this can be a complex area, Estate Planning is the sole specialist area that Miller Reeves focuses on.
Aside from being purely focused on the specialist area of Estate Planning, the advice and recommendations that you receive are all backed up by our industry leading Legal Partners Countrywide Tax & Trust Corporation who are S.T.E.P (Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners) member so you can feel comfortable in the quality of the advice. To give you further comfort, both we and Countrywide carry Professional Indemnity Insurance.
One of our Estate Planners will sit down with you either face-to-face or over the telephone and understand your position and what you are trying to achieve. We will then revert back to you with a FREE Estate Planning Report which will contain useful recommendations and information for your perusal.
In short YES.
Your Estate Planning Report will be prepared after assessing your situation at NO cost to you. The report will look at what services may benefit you and your family. The individual cost of these services and the total cost of the planning will be listed clearly in the report before you make any decision as to whether to engage us.