About this episode

Cyra and guest Trish Venables discuss asset protection strategies, including the use of discretionary trusts and their implications for inheritance tax and care fees.

Find a Solicitor here: https://medicsmoney.co.uk/medical-solicitor/ Cyra hosts Trish Venables, a solicitor at Talbots Law, to explain asset protection as maximising assets preserved for descendants and shielding them from risks such as divorce, care home fees, and means-tested benefits rules. Trish describes discretionary trusts set up in life or via a will, where beneficiaries have no absolute entitlement, supported by private letters of wishes, helping reduce exposure in divorce and allowing disabled beneficiaries to receive support without losing benefits. She outlines practicalities, including trustee selection, Trust Registration Service registration, and inheritance tax (IHT) implications such as a 20% lifetime entry charge above the £325,000 threshold and the seven-year rule. She warns that putting a home into a lifetime trust while continuing to live there can be challenged as deprivation of assets and a gift with reservation; instead, a will-based life interest trust over a severed 50% share may ring-fence value from care assessments. They discuss gifting from surplus income, and Trish notes NHS defined benefit pensions likely face no immediate IHT change, unlike some…

People in this episode

Host: Cyra

Guest: Trish Venables

Topics covered

• asset protection
• trusts
• inheritance tax
• care home fees
• divorce
• benefits

Keywords

• asset protection
• discretionary trusts
• inheritance tax
• care home fees
• divorce
• benefits

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Talbots Law, NHS, Trust Registration Service

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