Property protection trusts explained

A couple own their home as tenants in common, each with a defined share. Each Will leaves that share not to the survivor outright, but on trust. The survivor becomes a life tenant: they can live in the property for as long as they wish, and the trust can usually move with them if they downsize. When they die, the ring-fenced share passes to the beneficiaries named in the first Will, usually the children.

Two things need to be in place for this to work: the joint tenancy must be severed so each owner has a distinct share, and the Will must contain the trust. One without the other does nothing.

• Remarriage. If the survivor remarries, the new marriage cancels their earlier Will, but it can't touch your half, which is already held on trust.
• A survivor changing their mind. Children from a first relationship can be quietly cut out by a later Will. The trust share is beyond reach.
• The survivor's creditors or a later divorce. The trust share isn't theirs to lose.

Trusts like this are often marketed as a way to avoid care fees. Be careful with that one. The trust only ever covers the share of the first person to die, so at best half the property sits outside the survivor's means test. And if a local authority decides an arrangement was made mainly to avoid care charges, it can treat the asset as if it were still owned, under the deliberate deprivation of assets rules. A trust created on death, for genuine family reasons, is on far safer ground than a lifetime transfer made when care is already foreseeable. But nobody should promise you it'll make the home immune from care fees, and I never will.

It's also not, on its own, an inheritance tax saving. For a married couple the spouse exemption and transferable nil-rate bands usually do the heavy lifting anyway, and the trust share still counts in the survivor's estate.

• Second marriages, and couples with children from earlier relationships.
• Couples where most of the wealth is in the house.
• Anyone who wants certainty that a specific share reaches specific people, whatever happens afterwards.

For a first-marriage couple leaving everything to shared children, a straightforward mirror Will is usually the better and cheaper answer.

1. Check how the property is held at HM Land Registry.
2. Sever the joint tenancy if needed, £30 for the severance document. A Land Registry search fee may apply, which is added on at cost.
3. Draft trust Wills, £200 for a single complex or trust Will, £350 for a pair of mirror complex or trust Wills. Each additional trust is £50 per trust, per person.
4. Appoint trustees who will realistically outlive the survivor.

Full price list