Best Probate Solicitors in Kingswood

Let’s assume you’re married, and you and your spouse jointly own the family home. Owning the home jointly means you both own the property in its entirety, and when either one of you dies, full ownership of the property will pass to the surviving spouse or partner. This isn’t necessarily a good thing from an estate planning point of view, because if the surviving spouse or partner is ever taken into care, given that they now own the property 100%, the local authority may insist that it is sold to pay for that care. So, what can you do to protect your home against this? The first thing we would advise is that you change the ownership status of your home from joint ownership to what’s called “tenants in common”. This means you and your spouse will each own a defined portion of the property. Most commonly, the split is 50/50. By arranging for each half of the property to be directed into a Trust via your Will, when either one of you dies, the one of you that survives would be left owning just half the house. Now, assuming you and your spouse are trustees and beneficiaries of each other’s Trust, the one of you that survives will retain full control of the property, but physically they’ll only own 50% of the it, because the other 50% is effectively owned by the Trust. What this means is, that if the one of your that survives is ever taken into care, the local authority can no longer insist that the property is sold to pay for fees because it is no longer owned outright.