Trust Services

Protect assets and provide for beneficiaries with flexible Trust arrangements.

Trust Services

Understanding Trusts

Trusts are powerful estate planning tools that provide control over how and when your assets are distributed to your chosen beneficiaries. They offer flexibility and protection, ensuring your assets are managed according to your wishes, both during your lifetime and after you're gone.

Instead of beneficiaries receiving assets outright upon inheritance, a trust places assets under the control of appointed trustees. These trustees manage the assets for the benefit of the beneficiaries, following the guidelines set out in the trust document.

Types of Trusts We Assist With

Two of the most widely used arrangements are described here, and every trust we offer has its own page linked further down.

Discretionary Trusts

These trusts offer maximum flexibility. Trustees are given discretion over how to manage the trust assets, deciding which beneficiaries receive funds, how much they get, and when. This allows trustees to adapt to changing circumstances and beneficiary needs over time.

Discretionary Trusts can be particularly useful for protecting assets from potential issues like a beneficiary's divorce or financial difficulties, and for providing for beneficiaries whose future needs are uncertain.

Vulnerable Persons Trusts (VPTs)

Also known as Trusts for Disabled Persons, these are specifically designed to provide for beneficiaries who are physically or mentally disabled, or otherwise considered vulnerable (e.g., under 18 and lost a parent).

VPTs can help ensure that the beneficiary's entitlement to state benefits is not negatively impacted by the trust funds, while still providing financial support for their care and well-being according to specific legal rules. Setting these up correctly is crucial.

Key Benefits of Using Trusts

  • Control Over Assets: Dictate how and when beneficiaries receive assets.
  • Protection for Beneficiaries: Safeguard assets for young, vulnerable, or challenged beneficiaries.
  • Asset Protection: Help shield assets from third-party claims or relationship breakdowns.
  • Providing for Complex Family Situations: Cater for blended families or specific individuals.
  • Flexibility: Trustees can adapt distributions based on evolving needs (especially Discretionary Trusts).

Setting Up a Trust

Establishing a trust involves appointing trustees and clearly defining the beneficiaries. The trust deed outlines the rules, the trustees' powers, and how assets should be managed.

You can provide guidance via a separate 'Letter of Wishes,' outlining preferences for how trustees exercise discretion (though not legally binding).

Our Trust Service

Our comprehensive Trust service includes:

  • Initial consultation to understand your family, assets, and objectives.
  • Expert guidance on the most suitable trust structure.
  • Drafting of clear and legally sound trust documentation.
  • Guidance on selecting appropriate trustees.
  • Assistance with transferring assets into the trust.
  • Help preparing a Letter of Wishes.
  • Ongoing support for trustees if needed.

Our experienced team will guide you through the entire process, ensuring your trust is properly established and aligned with your estate planning goals.

Contact us today to learn how a Trust can help protect your family's future.

Our Trusts, Explained Page by Page

Each of these pages sets out who the trust suits, what it protects and what it asks of your trustees. If you are not sure which one fits, call us and we will point you to the right one.

Property Trusts

Protect your half of the family home so it passes to your chosen beneficiaries. We handle the severance of the joint tenancy and the will trust that goes with it.

Learn More

Personal Injury Trusts

Ring-fence a compensation payout so it is disregarded for means-tested benefits and care funding assessments, while you keep control of how the money is used.

Learn More

Family Asset Protection Trusts

Hold family wealth in trust for the generations that follow. The arrangement is designed to help keep assets in the bloodline and reduce their exposure to remarriage, divorce or a beneficiary bankruptcy.

Learn More

Discretionary Trusts

Trustees you choose decide how and when each beneficiary benefits, guided by your letter of wishes, so the arrangement can adapt as your family changes.

Learn More

Vulnerable Persons Trusts

Provide for a disabled or vulnerable loved one in a way designed to protect their means-tested benefits and care funding, with trustees who know them well.

Learn More

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between an Executor and a Trustee?
An Executor manages your estate immediately after death, handling tasks like probate applications, debt settlement, and initial asset distribution. Their role typically concludes once the estate is settled. A Trustee has longer-term responsibilities, managing any ongoing trusts established in your Will, potentially for many years. While the same person can serve in both roles, the Trustee's duties continue well after the Executor's responsibilities end.
Why do I need a Living Trust?
A trust set up during your lifetime holds assets for your chosen beneficiaries with trustees you appoint, rather than everything passing under your Will. Unlike a Will, which only takes effect after death, it works while you are alive and continues afterwards. It can help keep those assets outside probate, maintain privacy and reduce the scope for inheritance disputes. What it does about creditors or care fees depends entirely on your circumstances and on the timing: assets rearranged once care is needed or clearly foreseeable can be treated by a council as deliberate deprivation, so we will tell you honestly what a trust can and cannot do for you before you commit to anything.
What is a Personal Injury Trust?
A Personal Injury Trust is a trust set up to hold compensation from a personal injury claim. It ring-fences the money so it is disregarded when a council or the DWP carries out a means-tested benefits or care funding assessment. Most are bare trusts, which means you keep control of how the money is used while trustees you choose hold it formally. Only compensation money should go into it, because mixing in other funds risks the protection it gives you.
Will a Personal Injury Trust protect my benefits?
It protects them going forward if it is set up in time. Savings above £6,000 can reduce entitlement to means-tested benefits and £16,000 or more usually ends it. A 52-week disregard period runs from the date of your first compensation payment, and after that window money you still hold personally counts as capital. Benefits lost before a Personal Injury Trust is created cannot be reclaimed, so the sooner you speak to us after a settlement, the better.
Does a Personal Injury Trust protect me from care fees?
Compensation held in a properly constituted trust should be left out of a local authority's financial assessment for care. In 2026 the High Court confirmed in R (CGT) v West Sussex County Council [2026] EWHC 293 (Admin) that personal injury trust funds must be fully disregarded in Care Act assessments. That is a strong protection, but it depends on the trust being set up correctly and on only compensation money going into it.
What is a Family Asset Protection Trust?
A Family Asset Protection Trust holds family assets for the benefit of the people you name, rather than passing everything outright on death. It is used to keep wealth in the bloodline, to protect what you leave from a new marriage after your death, and to shield a child's inheritance if they later divorce or run into financial trouble. Because assets in trust are not part of a beneficiary's estate, it can also simplify matters for the next generation.
Can a trust keep an inheritance in the bloodline?
That is one of the main reasons families use them. If you leave assets outright, they become your beneficiary's property and can end up with a former spouse, a new partner or a creditor. Holding them in a Family Asset Protection Trust means trustees can support your children and grandchildren while the underlying assets stay where you intended. We talk through who your trustees should be and how much discretion to give them.
Does putting assets in trust mean I lose control?
No, but the arrangement does change. Trustees hold the legal title and must act in the beneficiaries' interests, so choosing the right people matters. You set the rules in the trust deed and you can leave a letter of wishes explaining how you would like decisions handled. Many clients act as trustees of their own Family Asset Protection Trust alongside someone they trust, which keeps day to day control familiar.
What is a Discretionary Trust?
In a Discretionary Trust the trustees decide how much each beneficiary receives and when, within the class of beneficiaries you name. Nobody has a fixed entitlement, which is what makes it flexible. That flexibility suits families whose circumstances are likely to change, and it protects funds where a beneficiary is young, vulnerable or unpredictable with money.
Can I put an inheritance I have received into a trust?
Often yes, and it is worth asking before the money lands in your own account. Receiving an inheritance can affect means-tested support, expose the funds to a future divorce or simply add to your own estate for inheritance tax. Depending on timing, a discretionary trust or a deed of variation may allow the inheritance to be redirected or held in trust instead. Call us before you spend or move anything, and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing.
What is a Vulnerable Persons Trust?
A Vulnerable Persons Trust holds money for someone who cannot reasonably manage it themselves, most often a disabled person or a young beneficiary who has lost a parent. Trustees hold and apply the funds for their benefit, paying for the things that improve daily life, so the beneficiary is provided for without money landing in their name and disrupting means-tested support.
Will a Vulnerable Persons Trust affect benefits or care funding?
That is precisely what it is designed to avoid. Because the funds belong to the trust rather than to the beneficiary, they are generally left out of means-tested assessments, so support such as Universal Credit or local authority care funding is not put at risk. Where the conditions are met, a trust for a disabled person can also qualify for special tax treatment. The rules are detailed, so we look at the individual circumstances before recommending anything.
How is a Life Interest Will different from a Property Protection Trust?
A Life Interest Will is the will structure that creates the trust, and it can cover the home, investments or both. A Property Protection Trust is the specific arrangement we use to protect a half share of the family home, which normally also involves severing a joint tenancy so each half can be dealt with separately. Many clients end up with both, and we explain which one does what before anything is drafted.

Working alongside a local solicitor

We work with a local solicitor and are able to cover any and all of your requirements. If in doubt, call us on 0800 048 7320 and ask, or use the contact form on our home page.

Call 0800 048 7320Use our contact form

Related Services

Property Trusts

Protect your half of the family home so it passes to your chosen beneficiaries. We handle the severance of the joint tenancy and the will trust that goes with it.

Learn More

Life Interest Wills

A will structure that gives your surviving partner a home and an income for life, while the capital is preserved for the children or other beneficiaries you have chosen.

Learn More

Wills

Secure your legacy by ensuring your estate is distributed according to your precise wishes with a legally valid Will. Without one, statutory rules determine how your assets are divided.

Learn More

Discuss Your Trust Options

Find out how a trust can fit into your estate plan. Contact us for a free consultation.

Call 0800 048 7320

AIB Estate Planning

6 Neptune Court, Hallam Way

Blackpool, FY4 5LZ

United Kingdom

0800 048 7320

info@aibestateplanning.co.uk

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