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Trusts can be genuinely useful in planning around an Inheritance Tax liability.

Particularly where money is placed into a trust while someone is still alive, and that person then survives for seven years after making the transfer.

In those circumstances a trust can do a great deal to reduce what a family eventually owes.

But trusts are not a universal answer.

They come with disadvantages, they are not right for everyone, and the decision to use one should never be taken lightly.

Which is why professional advice from someone properly qualified matters so much here.

We have seen people advised to put things into trust that made very little sense for their circumstances.

The most common example is the family home.

Less qualified or unregulated advisers sometimes encourage people to place their main residence into a trust during their lifetime, and this can cause all sorts of problems.

It can create tax consequences that were never intended.

It can interfere with allowances that would otherwise have been available.

And in many cases it does not achieve the Inheritance Tax saving the client was told to expect.

None of which becomes apparent until it is too late to easily undo.

So where do trusts genuinely work?

Typically for someone who has an Inheritance Tax liability, who wants to protect wealth for the generations that follow, and who understands what they are giving up in exchange for that protection.

For that person, in the right circumstances, a trust can be a genuinely valuable part of a wider plan.

The key words there are wider plan.

A trust is not a strategy on its own.

It is one tool among several, and it works best when it forms part of something more considered.

Our deathtime planning service exists for exactly this reason.

It is designed to make sure family wealth is preserved for the generations that follow, so that you can enjoy the here and now without worrying about what happens later.

That means a skillfully drafted will, the right trust frameworks where they genuinely help, and advice from a team that deals exclusively with later life issues.

There can scarcely be a greater gift to the people you love than using your wealth to benefit them, even in death.

The families who get the most out of trusts are the ones who took proper advice before acting, not after.