Keep your share of the home for the people you choose.
A Property Protection Trust is written into your Will. When you die, your share of the family home goes into a trust rather than straight to your partner. They can carry on living there for the rest of their life, and your share still ends up with your children.
Who it tends to suit
- Couples with children from an earlier relationship
- Second marriages where both sides brought a home or savings
- Parents who want to be certain their children inherit their share
- People worried what happens if the survivor remarries
How it works in practice
First, the way you own the house usually needs changing from joint tenants to tenants in common, so you each own a defined share. That is a separate, simple piece of paperwork, and we charge £30 for it. A Land Registry search fee may apply, which is added on at cost.
Then each of you makes a Will leaving your share into the trust. Your chosen trustees look after it, the survivor has the right to live there, and when they die the trust passes your share to your children.
Being straight with you
These trusts are sometimes sold as a way of avoiding care fees. Councils can and do look at arrangements made to put assets out of reach, and there is no guarantee. We will explain what a trust can genuinely do for your family, and if it is not right for you we will say so.
Our fees
- Complex and Trust Wills: £200 for one person, £350 for a couple
- Each additional trust: £50 per trust, per person
- Severance of joint tenancy: £30