Estate planning
With life expectancy increasing, along with major social change, how can you make your wealth work harder for the benefit of your whole family?
Traditionally, wealth has passed from one generation to the next upon death. However, intergenerational wealth management challenges that notion and looks at how families can use their wealth more collaboratively, to support each other during their lifetimes.
Through intergenerational wealth management, we can offer you estate planning advice and tax mitigation opportunities, while providing much needed help to alleviate the financial burdens of everyday life, such as living costs, school or university fees and childcare.
For the challenges you face
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How can I provide for the future of my children?
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How can I protect my family?
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What should I plan for in later life?
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What is the best way to support other generations of my family after retirement?
Our estate planning services
We are now witnessing a phenomenon where the ‘baby boomers’ – those born in the post-war era and now retired or approaching retirement – represent the wealthiest generation in our society. However, while they enjoy the fruits of their labour, they are sandwiched between elderly parents facing the challenges of old age, and children struggling with university debts and spiralling house prices.
Changing family pressures will increasingly impact retirement planning in the years ahead, and people are now, more often than not, expected to pass on less after they have gone.
Providing peace of mind for your children, grandchildren, parents and other loved ones, and developed in conjunction with WPA, SJP have created a unique and exclusive, generation-spanning, Family Healthcare and Insurance Plan, to help protect the health of your whole (extended) family.
Estate planning: How Morrinson Wealth can help
Later life and social care planning
Helping loved ones onto the property ladder
*Estate planning, wills and Power of Attorney
Gifting
Arranging care for yourself or a loved one can be emotional and complicated. The type and location of care homes, eligibility for state benefits, and considerations surrounding funding are all important. Nobody can predict how long care will be required for and therefore how long it will have to be paid for.
Financial planning can help you forecast how much you may need, while safeguarding as much capital as possible.
More people are passing on their pension pot as part of their legacy and using other assets for a retirement income. Pensions can fall outside of an estate (thereby avoiding inheritance Tax), and so can be a tax efficient way to transfer wealth across the generations.
Helping decide what care is right for you or a loved one can seem daunting. Your local authority can help you understand your care needs, but residential care home places can be expensive.
The current average costs for care homes in the UK:
Residential care: £760 per week, or £3290 per month
Nursing home care: £960 per week, or £4160 per month
Care home fees advice | How to pay, Carehome.co.uk, Nov 2023.
Some support may be available from your local authority, but you may need to use income, savings, investments, immediate needs annuities, or the sale/rental of a property to pay for care costs. Typically, most care fees will need to be paid on a regular basis rather than a lump sum, so using a form of income can make sense in certain circumstances.
We offer Later life planning to help meet your long-term financial needs. This may involve a referral to Care Sourcer, whose services are separate and distinct to those offered by St. James’s Place.
Young people today are finding it difficult to join the ranks of homeowners, and an increasing number of parents and grandparents are stepping in to help loved ones onto the property ladder. There are a number of ways to do this, such as gifting, loans, and providing security to mortgage providers. However, advice should be taken when considering which option to take, to ensure that no unexpected tax liabilities result from this act of generosity.
When providing for successive generations, the protection of accumulated wealth becomes important, including Inheritance Tax (IHT). IHT is charged at 40% on all assets above an allowance known as the nil-rate band (NRB), currently £325,000 – or £650,000 for married couples and registered civil partners (where the exemption is not used on first death) or the residence nil-rate band (RNRB) of £175,000 (£350,000 for married couples and registered civil partners).
To preserve and enhance your wealth for your heirs, make sure your financial affairs and your Will are arranged to ensure the tax-efficient transfer of your assets on death. Transfer assets before your death through the prudent use of lifetime gifts. Create a tax-efficient fund to provide a legacy, or to enable the beneficiaries of your estate to meet any IHT liability.
Making a Will is vital in IHT planning and it is important to ensure it is well-written and structured correctly, to make the most of the tax reliefs available, while ensuring your assets go where you want them to. We have access to a number of legal service providers who can arrange Wills and Power of Attorney documentation on your behalf.
*The writing of a Will or Powers of Attorney involves the referral to a service that is separate and distinct from those offered by St. James’s Place. Wills and Powers of Attorney are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Gifting is a tax-efficient way of creating an investment fund for your beneficiaries and potentially reducing the value of your estate for IHT purposes. Our Gift Plan combines an investment bond (either onshore or offshore), with either an absolute or discretionary trust, which is controlled by you and benefits those who you want it to – the first £3k (or £6k for joint investors) is tax exempt.
You could also use a trust to help you put your money in the right hands at the right time. It can provide money for successive generations and earmark funds for family members, preserving money which may otherwise be diluted due to divorce or bankruptcy of a beneficiary. It can also mitigate Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, or IHT, and help avoid delays in obtaining a Grant of Probate.
Trusts are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The value of an investment with St. James’s Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select, and the value can therefore go down as well as up. You may get back less than you invested.
The levels and bases of taxation, and reliefs from taxation, can change at any time and are generally dependent on individual circumstances.
Contact us for your estate planning needs
Book a call with one of our experts today and take the first step towards establishing and achieving your financial goals.
