Trusts Case Study

How a trust has effectively helped protect the family home

Mr and Mrs Capital contacted LR Connections after experiencing the distressing situation of watching Mr Capital’s father go through dementia and have to be taken into care. Unfortunately, no-one is able to help Mr Capital’s father once he loses capacity. Without his estate being in order, everything Mr Capital’s father owned was being sold off to pay for his care fees. The Capitals decided that they didn’t want their children to go through the same heartache as they had to. They were sorting out what was left of his estate and they found towards the end that they had to start covering some of the cost of his care.  They both agreed that watching a loved one going through dementia was painful enough. Mr Capital was concerned about his own future on the basis that dementia was in his family and might be hereditary. He decided to seek specialist advice and that is how he came into contact with LR Connections.

Background

Mr Harry Capital (52) and Mrs Clare Capital (53) contacted LR Connections, concerned about the family home being taken due to care fees. This was because they had recently experienced the loss of their inheritance due to Mr Capital’s father having to be taken into care. They wanted to know if there was any way of stopping this from happening again in their family, as they wanted their home to go to their two boys, Jonathan and Marcus. From looking over their existing Will, they could see that their estate was equalised. This led them to believe that if Mr Capital found himself with dementia that they would have to sell the family home and his half of the estate would end up paying for his care costs. Mrs Capital would have to move in with one of the boys or downsize to a smaller property. Then she would have to hope that, if she ever needed care, one of the boys would take her in so that some of the estate could be left the boys. 

How LR Estate Planning helped

Our Adviser worked to achieve the couple’s desired outcome – to avoid them losing the family home or one of the boys having to take in Mrs Capital, if Mr Capital ever found himself needing to be taken into care. The Adviser set out all the foreseeable outcomes, then explained the actions that needed to be taken as well as the correct responses, reminding the couple that we are always on hand to help. Once Mr and Mrs Capital were happy with the plan and felt that all their concerns had been met, they were then asked to fill out some paperwork to confirm that they gave their permission for the Adviser to make inquiries on their behalf. They then needed to declare all their assets to the Adviser – information which we treat as highly confidential – and the Adviser was then able to make sure the whole estate was protected.

What happened next

Once the Adviser had made all the inquiries and felt they had found the best way to achieve the Capitals’ wishes, they booked another appointment with them to present their findings. Once everyone was happy the Adviser then arranged for the appropriate documents to be drawn up (which typically takes up to two weeks) and the Adviser booked another appointment with the Capitals so they could sign all the documents. The Adviser also ensured the Capitals had arranged for witnesses – independent people who would not be benefiting from the Capitals’ estate – to be present at the signing.

From then onwards it was the Capitals’ responsibility either to keep the documents safe themselves or to arrange for the Adviser to set up a storage facility for the documents to be kept in a safe, secure location until needed.

Mr and Mrs Capital were then able to rest easy, knowing that there was an LR Adviser on hand to help with any further problems.