Wills, Trusts & Probate
Good planning is key to ensuring the protection and smooth transition of assets and wealth from one generation to the next. Our private client solicitors specialise in the preparation of Wills, inheritance tax planning and the creation of trusts.
Harrison Drury’s Wills, trusts and probate team is one of the largest in the North West and act for both individuals and their families.
From wealth and trust planning to dealing with a bereavement, our highly experienced and solicitors will work with you to deal with the administration of the estate, protect your assets and ensure your property and possessions pass to those who you wish to benefit from them.
We assist individuals with the drafting of their Wills and inheritance tax issues in a wide range of circumstances, including business owners, landed estates, individuals with large estates, those with significant financial and property assets and others looking to protect the future financial security of their loved ones.
Our Wills, tax, trusts, probate and estate planning solicitors can help you with:
- Writing and updating a Will, including complex Wills.
- Work with you and your family to put an inheritance tax plan into place.
- Prevent your family from paying unnecessary inheritance tax at the time of your death by making best use of trusts.
- Reduce the risk of claims from people you do not want to benefit from your estate.
- Help you to protect your financial and property assets.
- Draft, set up and manage all types of trusts.
- Look after children under 18 by setting up Wills and trusts.
- Nominate guardians and make financial provision for children under 16.
- Help children, spouses, ex-spouses and other dependents on death by bringing or defending family provision claims.
- Protect elderly relatives and other vulnerable family members through the Court of Protection.
- Appoint executors and trustees to look after your estate.
- Deal with the administration of a large and complex estate.
- Put a Lasting Power of Attorney in place to appoint someone to manage your financial affairs.
- Put a Lasting Power of Attorney in place to appoint someone to look after your business.
- Put a Lasting Power of Attorney in place to appoint someone to make decisions regarding your health and welfare.
- Putting a Lasting Power of Attorney in place to appoint someone to look after your business.
- Contest a Will where reasonable provision has not been made.
Frequently Asked Questions
Probate is the act of dealing with a person’s assets after they have died. We can advise on all aspects of this process, from obtaining the grant of probate, to full administration of the estate and setting up and administering any continuing trusts.
Our expert solicitors have experience in dealing with estates involving complex assets, such as a business or agricultural property, or where there are other complicating factors, such as when assets are held overseas.
Harrison Drury’s contentious Wills and probate solicitors can advise those looking to contest a will on the grounds that insufficient provision has been made for them, or those on the receiving end of a claim. Our expertise also includes challenging the validity of Wills in a range of other scenarios, such as loss of capacity, financial misfeasance, fraud and forgery. We can obtain freezing injunctions, and other types of urgent court relief. We also act for children and vulnerable adults where we have replaced executors and trustees acting unlawfully.
People will often want to give another person authority to make a decision on their behalf should they ever lose the mental capacity to make decisions for themselves. A power of attorney is a legal document allowing them to do so.
There are two distinct types of Lasting Power of Attorney, one for property and financial affairs and one for health and welfare. We prepare both types and act as certificate provider, as well as arranging the registration of a Lasting Powers of Attorney with the
Office of the Public Guardian. In exceptional circumstances Directors in the firm may act as attorneys for property and financial affairs.
The Court of Protection exists to safeguard vulnerable people who lack the mental capacity to make decisions for themselves. These decisions may relate to the person’s finances or their health and welfare.
At Harrison Drury, we act in matters that come before the court, including making statutory Wills on someone else’s behalf and making an application for a court-appointed deputy.
Harrison Drury has experience in advising high-net-worth individuals on the writing of complex Wills, particularly where trusts are used to mitigate inheritance tax.
Our complex Wills team also advises on the use of discretionary trusts where the person making the Will doesn’t want the beneficiaries to inherit immediately, perhaps where they are too young. We also advise on the use of trusts for other family situations, perhaps where there has been a second marriage and there are children from the first relationship, where assets are held in different jurisdictions, or with issues relating to the domicile status of the person making the will.
For wealthier people, a Will isn’t solely about ensuring the right people benefit from their estate when they die. Often there will be a range of other objectives, such as protecting their estate from having to pay for such things as local authority care home fees, divorce costs, or other unforeseen actions of beneficiaries.
All of these goals can be achieved by including carefully drafted trust provisions in the Will and arranging for the appointment of suitable people to hold the estate as trustees. As well as advising on the trust provisions, our expert lawyers can also assist with the general administration of trusts and with ten-year anniversary charges, tax returns and trust accounts.
Meet our Wills, Trusts & Probate team
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