BBC documentary highlights problems commonly seen in Norfolk

Posted 17/01/2011

The BBC 2 documentary ‘You Can’t Take It With You’ on Friday highlighted problems experienced all too often by local families and solicitors. Robert Chalmers, Wealth Management partner at Norwich solicitors Ashtons Legal, hopes it will provide the stimulus for more people to stop putting off making their Will, discuss their plans with their families, and ‘just do it’.

For those who didn’t see it, the programme focused primarily on the difficult decisions being made by couples as to what should happen to their assets on their death. In the scenarios chosen the decisions surrounded whether their wealth should be passed back to the husbands’ children by a previous marriage or be given to charity.

Robert comments: “Most families have issues of some description which are best discussed while they are still alive, and then planned for appropriately in their Wills. While these can involve charity donations as in the BBC programme, the most common decisions are to do with what to leave to which children and in what shares particularly where those shares may be unequal and there are children from a previous marriage. This is a common occurrence when one or more of the children but not all have been involved in a family business, or where the siblings have ended up with very different financial circumstances due to some combination of career choice, ability, marriage, divorce, or the size of their own families.

All too often people either put off both the discussions and the Will making process and die without ever having put their wishes in writing. This can lead not only to their estate not going to the people they would have chosen but also to more tax being payable than would otherwise have been the case. ‘Family chemistry’ can also often be an issue and so before making controversial provisions it is always better to discuss their wishes and decide which members of the family need to be involved in such discussions especially where there is a strong likelihood that this may be challenged by someone who has expected to inherit but will not do so. There is no real substitute for discussing all these issues with a specialist such as a solicitor and in good time as ‘after the event’ will invariably be too late.

What many people may not realise, but was illustrated well in the BBC2 programme, is that you do not have to leave your assets to someone outright. For one of the two couples featured, a ‘life interest trust’ was the best solution; in this case it enabled a lady to ensure that her husband would be able to stay in their joint home for the rest of his life if she died first, but on his death the majority of her share would then go to a local cat charity. Meanwhile, if he died first, she would retain the right to live in the property but on her death his share would go to his children by his previous wife rather than to the cats.

Anyone with these sorts of issues may be interested to watch the next five episodes in the series which will deal with other problem scenarios which sometimes deter people from making a Will. The message coming through from the series is the same message that we as solicitors seek to give