The daughter called two months after her father’s funeral. The family wasn’t speaking. Her brother had changed the locks on the family home in Surrey. At stake was an estate worth just over £1.5 million. The central asset, the house, was valued at £850,000. It was supposed to be split between them. But a document found in the father’s desk, a ‘declaration of trust’, was unclear. It referred to a loan from a business partner that no one knew about. The situation was static. The money was frozen.
The Good Intention
I have sat at a dozen kitchen tables just like that one. The father, a widower, had tried to do the right thing. He wanted to protect the property for his children but also honour an old business debt. He drafted his own trust document after reading something online. He also appointed his new companion as an attorney on a Lasting Power of Attorney two years before he died. At the time, it seemed a kind gesture. After his death, it became a weapon. The companion claimed the father intended to amend his Will to provide for her, using the LPA as evidence of his trust in her. It created a second front in a war that was already costing the siblings everything.
The Structural Failure
This is not a story about greed. It is a story about structure. A vague, home-made trust created one problem. A poorly considered LPA created another. The executor was paralysed, facing claims from the children, the business partner, and the companion. The legal bills for all parties came out of the estate, eroding it by over £120,000 in the first 18 months. Recent High Court judgments have had to intervene in cases just like this, clarifying how executors should handle disputed assets. But court is a failure state. It is an admission that the planning was not good enough.
For families with property assets, particularly in London and the South East, this is the primary risk. Your Will is only one part of the plan. A declaration of trust must be precise. The choice of attorney for your LPA requires the same diligence as choosing an executor. These documents have to work together, under pressure.
We have seen the cost of ambiguity. If this scenario resonates, we should talk.
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Written by Sean Kiani, Estate Planner at Inheritance Made Simple. Sean writes and reviews the firm's guidance on estate planning, wills, trusts and inheritance tax, and works with families across Bournemouth, Poole, Dorset and Central London. Verify Sean's Society of Will Writers membership listing.