Asset Protection Trusts It is interesting - to me at least - that certain items of ‘opportunity’ appear at certain seasons and now - in addition to the ISA “use it or lose it” campaign there is a concerted effort to promote trusts which purport to deliver a range of benefits, the sales pitch focusing very much on the emotions of losing our homes to care fees and reducing the cost of probate. In a former life I worked for a firm which specialised in care fee funding, supported by a charity which worked alongside a number of care organisations and social services/local authorities. Put simply, any effort to disguise/shelter/remove property will be regarded as deliberate deprivation - the intention to deliberately avoid paying for care, should the need arise, and ‘benefit’ from state support. You may be familiar with the recent BBC expose on a certain law firm which offered a client a free Will but charged substantially for a trust designed to protect her home for the benefit of her children. The individual was unaware that she’d lose legal ownership nor warned of the consequences to legacy plans. And of course, no mention that the local authority might simply ignore the trust altogether. As to whether these trusts work it will be determined by personal experience but should they be regarded as a gamble? And an expensive gamble at that? Finally, even if the local authority is fooled/convinced as to the real motivations behind the trust, what does that mean for the individual. To answer that I would encourage those who are interested to research local authority financial support and compare this with the cost of care in a preferred home. 25 years ago the difference was substantial but since then we have seen the Care Standards Act and minimum wage impacting the costs for care homes, at the same time as the demise of local authority care homes. Most local authorities offer packages of support without cost and for the well heeled there are certain FCA regulated structures such as ‘care annuities’ which are worthy of research.

Posted by Chris Haley at 2026-03-05 12:25:55 UTC