The Transparency Task Force: Asset Protection Trusts

November 27th 2024 | trusts
The Transparency Task Force (TTF), an organisation dedicated to promoting transparency and accountability in the financial and legal sectors, recently convened to address a pressing issue that has shaken the legal community in Scotland: the failure of McClures Solicitors and the various clients who feel badly let down by the read more...

One Mans Recycling is Another Man’s Testamentary Opportunity..

November 15th 2024 | wills and probate
In an interesting ruling earlier this month, the High Court ruled that a man's Will, written on the back of 2 food boxes, was legally valid. This ruling has sparked widespread interest in the formalities surrounding the creation of a Will, especially in cases where unconventional methods are used. The read more...

Top 10 Reasons to Use a Solicitor to Administer an Estate

October 25th 2024 | wills and probate
Administering an estate can be a daunting task, especially during a time of grief. Often families want their loved ones (usually their partner or children) to undertake this task and in many cases that is entirely appropriate. However, there are a number of times that using a professional (whether that read more...

Death Bed Gifts - A Recent Case

July 17th 2024 | wills and probate
A running theme of this blog is the lack of consumer protection when using unregulated legal services providers (see here and here and here ).   We have also previously touched upon an area that I had considered effectively confined to dusty shelves of the academia (Donatio Mortis Causa – see read more...

Rates of Inheritance Tax Around The World

May 24th 2024 | estate planning
With a looming general election, us tax professionals always have one eye on what that might mean to taxation in general, and for our clients in particular. In my case, the plat du jour is always inheritance tax. That has very much been a tale of 3 halves for the read more...

Acting as a Certificate Provider - the Pitfalls

March 21st 2024 | powers of attorney
In a previous blog  I explained what a ‘Certificate Provider’ is for the purpose of completing a Lasting Power of Attorney.  I also noted that Certificate Providers can face personal liability if they do not discharge their duties correctly when signing the Power of Attorney document. In this blog, I read more...

Is Inheritance Tax About to be Abolished?

January 26th 2024 | estate planning
We don't gamble in the private wealth department, especially on something as capricious (in recent times at least) as Conservative tax policy. But if we were gamblers, my money would very much be on 'no'. It is worth unpacking this though. There has been a lot of noise recently around read more...

Intestacy Stinks

October 9th 2023 | wills and probate
One of my recent blogs linked through to an informative and amusing serious of articles by Judge Gold in the magazine 'This is Money'. I would highly recommend them . When the firm tweeted (X'ed?) that blog, we referred to Judge Gold as our new favourite judge. It was pointed read more...

Inheritance Tax Cuts?

October 4th 2023 | estate planning
Someone may want to have a word with Rishi Sunak about his mooted cuts to the "puntive and unfair" inheritance tax (IHT). & no, not only because it will do estate planners like me out of work.. The argument that IHT is unfair is a pretty simple one: Any wealth read more...

When Tax Planning Goes Wrong!

September 20th 2023 | estate planning
Here in the Wealth Management and Taxation department, we love a good tax planning wheeze. However, as we frequently advise clients, there are wheezes and then there are wheezes (by which, I do of course mean opaque schemes that feel a bit icky and seem bound to fail at some read more...

Do It Yourself? A Tale of Probate & Woe

September 11th 2023 | wills and probate
I recently came across a fantastic series of 3 articles in This is Money, written by retired judge Stephen Gold. M'lud had found himself executing the estate of his late aunt. I would commend them to anyone who wants a concise and honest precis of the kinds of frustrations, delays, read more...

5 Reasons to Write a Will

March 1st 2023 | wills and probate
A Will is a legal document that outlines how a person's assets should be distributed after their death. Despite its importance, it is estimated that as much as 60% of the population either do not have a Will, or have not reviewed their Will following a major life event (marriage, read more...

What's Yours is Mine?

February 17th 2023 | contested probate
We have particular expertise at Allan Janes in estate litigation of all varieties. By far the most common claims though occur under the Inheritance (Provision for Family & Dependants) Act 1975 when (usually) a spouse or child has been left out of the Will, or have otherwise not received reasonable read more...

Planning for Later Life Seminar

November 10th 2022 | Seminars
Allan Janes hosted this seminar with Duncan Horner of Premier Financial Management and Kate Hetzel of Eximius Care, discussing later life options. This seminar covers: Wills, LPAs and Estate Planning Allan Janes’ Ashley Minott guides you through the importance of preparing Lasting Powers of Attorney, and some of the more read more...

Inheritance Tax Nil Rate Band to Remain Frozen Until 2028

November 8th 2022 | estate planning
Private Client lawyers have long been used to a frozen Inheritance Tax (IHT) threshold (known as the nil rate band). An individual's nil rate band has remained at a constant £325,000 since April 2009 (£650,000 for married couples).   Prior to that date, the threshold had increased on a yearly basis, read more...

What is a Certificate Provider

November 7th 2022 | powers of attorney
We have previously blogged about the significant benefits of putting in place Lasting Powers of Attorney. If you use a professional to prepare that document, invariably they will act as your Certificate Provider (unless they are also a proposed attorney).  However, if you prepare the document yourself, you will need read more...

Dealing with Family Estrangements

October 7th 2022 | wills and probate
As Private Client advisers, we are accustomed to dealing both with close knit families looking for the best way to provide for each other, but also with the fall out when a family member becomes estranged.  Recent research in the US  suggests that half of all families experience some form read more...

Dilapidations Seminar

September 15th 2022 | Seminars
  Our latest seminar, this time covering issues relating to the repair Obligations of Commercial Landlords and Tenants as well as Diliapidation Claims. Please click here for a copy of the slides.   Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries arising from this presentation.  read more...

Should I Sever My Joint Tenancy?

July 21st 2022 | trusts
Own a house with your spouse? No, this is not the start to a Dr. Seuss poem! This is a blog focusing on domestic co-ownership and how you could be affected by joint tenancy. Commercial co-ownership can be slightly different, and I will aim to address this in a future read more...

Delays at the Office of the Public Guardian

July 1st 2022 | powers of attorney
New government statistics confirm what the profession has already known for some time – the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) is experiencing significant delays in registering Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs). Tom Pursglove MP, Justice Minister, confirmed recently that the current average time to register an LPA is around read more...

Business Succession Seminar

June 15th 2022 | Seminars
A recording of our recent succession planning seminar for owner managed businesses. Please click here for a copy of the slides.  Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries arising from this presentation.  read more...

Probate Frauds

May 10th 2022 | wills and probate
Probate fraud is an age-old issue, but one that is taking a variety of new forms in the digital age. I hope this article will help the unwary executor spot and avoid these traps and also an unwitting beneficiary from falling victim. Types of Frauds Against Beneficiaries It is a read more...

Business Succession Planning Breakfast Seminar and Networking

March 28th 2022 | social
Business succession planning is often enormously complex, particularly for small to medium, family or owner-managed businesses. If you are considering your next move, there are a number of factors to consider such as whether you want to sell (and how to do that), passing the business to the next generation read more...

Excepted Estates – New Inheritance Tax Rules

January 14th 2022 | wills and probate
On the 1st January the Inheritance Tax (Delivery of Accounts) (Excepted Estate) (Amendment) Regulation 2021 came into effect.  Those regulations are designed to greatly simplify inheritance tax compliance with HMRC for “Excepted Estates”. It was, and remains, a requirement for all estates in which there is an inheritance tax liability read more...

My dear friend as executor…

December 6th 2021 | wills and probate
A frequently encountered client instruction in private client is the naming of executors and trustees. When writing a Will it is unavoidable, essential information. One problem that pops up however is when a client wants to name their dear friend who is of a similar age. It can be a read more...

Care Fee Mitigation

November 17th 2021 | estate planning
Back in January I wrote this blog , which gained significant traction on social media and a number of enquiries to the firm in respect of asset protection trusts. I was very pleased to have been able to prevent some clients from entering into these documents, but sadly I did hear read more...

STEP Success for Ashley Minott

August 27th 2021 | estate planning
Earlier this month, my associate Ashley Minott  received confirmation that she had passed her final STEP exam and is now entitled to the designation ‘TEP’ (Trust and Estate Practitioner). Ashley becomes a full member of STEP (The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) having completed their diploma in Tax and read more...

Planning For Later Life: Is Your Care Home Inclusive?

June 29th 2021 | estate planning
Estate planning and all that it entails affects different people in different ways. From years of first hand experience l had a pretty good idea of what to write for our Pride series, as estate planning for the LGBT+ community can, and usually does, raise a variety of complex and read more...

Bernie's Plight (How to Avoid an Inheritance Dispute)

May 18th 2021 | estate planning
I recently came across this advert, which I think speaks for itself. Bernie, I have no idea who you are, but firstly I feel for your plight. Having witnessed many a family bust up over inheritance, I can vouch from the frontline they are always a miserable affair (and that read more...

Rethinking Patient Consent: Changes to the Mental Health Act

February 8th 2021 | wills and probate
Reforming the Mental Health Act 1983 (“the Act”) On the 13 th January 2021, the UK Government published a White Paper, Reforming the Mental Health Act , which recommends the modernisation and improvement of mental health care across the country. Their proposals to reform the governing legislation have been guided read more...

Asset Protection Trusts - The Next Big Mis-selling Scandal

January 28th 2021 | trusts
I am moved to write this blog after a good client of mine recently approached me, having been approached herself by a company offering her an ‘Asset Protection Trust’. Her question for me was should I do it. My unequivocal answer was no for the reasons I will set out read more...

ESG Investing: Doing Well by Doing Good

January 8th 2021 | trusts
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance which are the three essential factors used in measuring the sustainability of an investment. In other words, ESG helps assess which businesses are viable long-term without causing harm to people or the planet. You may also have heard of ethical investing, responsible investing, read more...

What are Cryptoassets and How are they Treated in Court?

December 4th 2020 | trusts
There is no single agreed definition of a cryptoasset and the market is constantly evolving so that new variations regularly emerge. However, broadly speaking, cryptoassets can be defined as digital assets that utilise cryptography (the science of protecting information through secure technology).  Cryptocurrencies, which are a type of cryptoasset, are read more...

Succession, Inheritance and Surrogacy: The Issues

November 4th 2020 | wills and probate
Surrogacy is when a person agrees to bear a child for someone else. Although it is legal in the UK, surrogacy arrangements cannot be enforced by the courts and it is illegal to pay the surrogate anything other than their reasonable expenses. This therefore limits the type of surrogacy arrangements read more...

Online Probate Applications Mandatory from Next Month

October 1st 2020 | wills and probate
More news from the ongoing farce that is that probate application process. Subscribers to this venerable blog will be well aware that last year the Government implemented a brand new, all singing, all dancing probate application system. No doubt they were cogniscent of the frankly embarrassing 2 to 4 week read more...

Remote Witnessing of Wills – Goodbye Horse, Hello Stable Door

August 27th 2020 | wills and probate
As anyone who has attempted to complete their Will over the last few months will know, the process of attestation has been a veritable pain in the proverbial. Wills Act 1837 Attestation in the case of Wills simply means signing. However the formalities for this process, as laid out in read more...

Thrown Under the Trustee Bus – A Cautionary Tale

May 26th 2020 | trusts
The role of trustee is a thankless task. Given its ongoing nature, it is certainly easy to argue that it is more onerous than acting as an executor (and that is certainly not without its problems ).  Acting as trustee can take up a considerable amount of time, place significant read more...

You Can't Write your Will on Loo Roll

March 19th 2020 | wills and probate
As I am sat here, at home, pondering the meaning of the Universe and trying to remember what the world looked like pre-Coronavirus (ah, halcyon days), I am moved to comment on our fascination with loo rolls.  I understand that the reason we started panic buying loo rolls has something read more...

Allan Janes Covid 19 Business Announcement

March 18th 2020 | business services
To all of our clients, friends and contacts, we thought it would be helpful to set out our own response to recent events and, in particular, how your matter will be dealt with in the coming weeks and months.  Business Continuity  Despite the recent difficulties and government directives we, as read more...

Probate Delays - Update

January 2nd 2020 | wills and probate
As any keen reader of our blog will have noted by now, there has been an ongoing debacle at the Probate Registries (part of Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service), which has resulted in substantial delays in issuing Grants of Probate. Perhaps mindful of the season, in November HMCTS announced read more...

8 Signs That Your Estate is Likely to be Contested

December 12th 2019 | contested probate
Estate administration is a curious beast. On the one hand it is a legal exercise which can often involve complex issues of taxation and succession (amongst others). On the other, it is a deeply personal process that often carries huge significance for both the person carrying it out and the read more...

Probate Fee U-Turn

October 14th 2019 | wills and probate
I am delighted to report that the Government has now announced the formal scrapping of its proposed probate fee hike, or, as they put it:  "We will withdraw these proposals, and keep the current system while we take a closer look at these court fees as part of our annual read more...

Swedish Death Cleaning - All You Need to Know

October 1st 2019 | wills and probate
I have apparently arrived late to the game of Swedish Death Cleaning, a phenomenon which first garnered attention early in 2018 following the release of the book ‘The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning’ by Margareta Magnusson. Everyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one, and especially anyone read more...

Allan Janes at Kop Hill Climb

September 18th 2019 | social
Allan Janes LLP will, yet again, make an appearance at Kop Hill Climb on 21 st & 22 nd September 2019. Kop Hill Climb, for those of you who are not familiar with the history, started originally in 1910 as a motorsport event with vintage cars and motorbikes racing up read more...

Probate Delays

August 22nd 2019 | wills and probate
In an effort to increase efficiency, the probate Courts introduced an all singing, all dancing new system earlier this year.  From a desperately inefficient 2 - 3 week wait for a Grant of Probate, Grants are now being issued in around 3 months..  Sadly, that's not a typo but fear read more...

What is the Trust Registration Service?

August 13th 2019 | trusts
If you are reading this blog, chances are you already have some idea what the Trust Registration Service (TRS) is. Perhaps you are a trustee wondering whether you need to register with this service. Maybe you are thinking of setting up a trust, or have already set up a trust, read more...

Holiday Home Owners Take Note: Brexit and Brussels IV

July 25th 2019 | brexit
This article will have specific relevance if you are a British National (even if not living in Britain) who has property in mainland Europe. This doesn’t need to be a holiday home, it could be (more or less) any other type of capital investment (cash, shares, your main residence, a read more...

Partner from Allan Janes to Appear on BBC News

June 21st 2019 | social
Every year I work at Glastonbury Festival with some old University friends. We are part of a 2,000 strong group volunteers that undertake all of the recycling at the festival.  As I'm sure you can imagine, with a festival the size of Glastonbury, that is no mean feat! There's a read more...

DIY Wills – Great News for Lawyers?!

May 17th 2019 | wills and probate
A good friend of mine recently told me that she was moving home. She saw no point in needlessly lining the coffers of those fat cat lawyers, so was planning on undertaking all of the conveyancing work herself. I wholeheartedly endorsed her savvy approach. Of course, the above is a read more...

Probate Court Fees

May 3rd 2019 | wills and probate
What is going on with Probate Court fees? Anyone with any skin in the game will take a step back at this point, 1,000-yard stare fixed in the distance, and slowly shake their head.  For anyone who has managed to avoid the news for the past 18 months (well done read more...

The Importance of Reviewing your Will (Nil Rate Gifts)

March 19th 2019 | wills and probate
To get the legal jargon out of the way, this article concerns the making of ‘nil rate band gifts’ in Wills and the effect of an available transferable nil rate band on such gifts. In plain English, a nil rate band gift in a Will is, in most cases, the read more...

Dangers of Will Writing Companies

March 13th 2019 | wills and probate
Lawyers are one of those groups of professionals that many of us really want to avoid. Our fear, not always unjustified, is that the visit will be painful. Painful physically (dentists, we’re looking at you) and painful financially. In the world of Private Client, which often involves difficult discussions about read more...

The Wills and Inheritance Quality Scheme

October 4th 2018 | wills and probate
Allan Janes has recently become an accredited member of The Law Society’s Wills and Inheritance Quality Scheme (WIQS). WIQS accredited firms are recognised by the Law Society as providing the highest standards of Will preparation and Estate administration by adhering to the best practice standards laid down by the scheme read more...
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