As set out
in earlier posts, and with thanks to the Television
Education Network, today’s
post addresses the issue of ‘When will an inheritance be at risk?’ at the
following link - https://youtu.be/Ks2GvSVp07U
As usual, a
transcript of the presentation for those that cannot (or choose not) to view
the presentation is below –
There is a true continuum in terms of the
approach that the court is going to take, where at one end, assets of a trust
will be completely exposed and will be considered property of the relationship.
At the other end, you've got a situation where the assets will be completely
ignored and they won't even be considered a financial resource.
Inheritance is a classic example, because in
order for the court to make a decision that they're not taken into account, it
really does come back, and this will often be used by the lawyers, to the two
word answer - 'it depends', because it really does depend on the underlying
factual matrix.
If people are particularly concerned about
trying to exclude inheritances, the types of things that the courts will
normally gravitate towards are things like ensuring that the assets pass as
late as possible in terms of when the relationship has broken down, and ideally
to the extent this can ever be achieved, that the assets don't pass until after
the relationship has ended.
The other things that are relevant include
whether the former spouse has in any way contributed to the growth of the
assets that are coming via the inheritance. Obviously, and most relevantly in
the context of trust planning, whether the people that are handing the assets
on have done so directly in the name of the spouse, or preferably have they
used some sort of trust structure - for example, a testamentary discretionary
trust.
Until next
week.