Press Releases on Personal Legal Planning 

- call Steve Pett on 0845 166 8873 (01323 741200) for more information.

You may use any of these releases as long as Allied Professional Will Writers Ltd (or www.apww.co.uk) is mentioned.   For more ideas, join the educational course below (but check currency before publishing)

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Releases currently available (bespoke articles on request to steve @ apww.co.uk)

Phizackerly – the death of NRB IOU Wills has been greatly exaggerated!

EPA baby thrown out with bathwater (current until end September 2007)

Free Guide to Inheritance Tax Secrets (NEW improved 2007/8 version)

Potted Guide to IHT & a BIG warning..

Phizackerly – the death of NRB IOU Wills has been greatly exaggerated!   

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www.Inheritance-Tax-Secrets.co.uk - free manual updated with Phizackerly notes.

No doubt you will have heard of this iniquitous ruling, which takes us back over 100 years in terms of (typically) Women’s Rights. There always has been an issue where one spouse has owned the home, and then transferred it into joint names.

If not here are a couple of links:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/investment/article1654123.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/14/nherit14.xml

Any couple with Inheritance Tax Planning Wills should be concerned if their home was used in the creation of the Nil Rate Band, AND the home was actually or effectively bought by one partner.

Our IHT Wills are Tax Planning Toolkits (even if we may sometimes call them Nil Rate Band IOU Wills!) and can cope with most circumstances.  The trouble is that you can only draft a Will in the light of current Law and Tax, so there will ALWAYS be the occasional need to update in the light of changing circumstances.

We believe that ALL Wills should be reviewed regularly as they can easily be affected by matters which the man in the street would not necessarily pick up – for example:

a)      The Law changes regularly

b)      Tax changes pretty much every year

c)      Your personal circumstances and those of your beneficiaries WILL change

d)      Things which you have left in your Will may no longer be owned by you.  My aunt left me half a million pounds worth of BP shares – but I got nothing as she had sold them!

This is exactly why we introduced our unique Professional Maintenance Service (PMS), and any clients who have joined will be made aware of the issues every year.  If they joined the standard PMS Service, they will also be entitled to use our free PMS Members helpline to review their circumstances and documents, and silver members can have free rewrites for any reason.

In a little more detail:

The Revenue’s position was that Dr Phizackerley had paid for the house with no contribution from his wife. Because the he survived her, the structure set up after the first death fell foul of S103 Finance Act 1986 (the Artificial Debt Rules) and so the debt on his death was disallowed on the basis that HMRC deemed that he had made her a gift of a 50% interest in the property: as she died first, he was receiving a loan of what had, in effect, been his own money. The matter went before the Special Commissioners who ruled for the HMRC.

There were some specific circumstances that applied in this case, most importantly being that the Doctor (the Donor) died after his wife, and the use of a debt or loan note to discharge the NRB legacy, rather than creating a charge over the property.

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POTTED GUIDE TO INHERITANCE TAX and a serious warning.

In these days of rising house prices, many home owners are over the Inheritance Tax limit before they even start counting other assets – savings, investments, pensions etc etc.  Most of the Tax is avoidable – if you plan carefully.

How much would your estate be worth if you died today?  Try adding it up.

Assuming you have a partner, and he she would inherit your assets (they probably won’t in most cases – the ebook explains!)

What would they now be worth, counting your assets, plus theirs, plus any insurances etc that would pay out on your death, such as mortgage ones and work schemes?

Houses:

Savings and Investments:

Life insurances & pensions:

Collections:

Cars:

Furniture, antiques, books etc:

Take £300,000 away from that, and the rest is taxed at 40%, which often makes the Taxman your biggest beneficiary – not your preferred choice, one suspects.

The nice thing about Inheritance Tax is that it can largely be avoided with planning and some of the measures are really simple, and cost nothing if you know about them.

All sorts of measures can be taken, but the Taxman is rather prone to changing the rules retrospectively, and thousands of people without proper continuing advice are under the impression that they have solved the problem.  Unfortunately, the Taxman outlawed many previously legitimate tax planning, measures last year so it is essential to keep your advice updated.

For those of you who would like a bit more detail, we have a free guide available at http://www.Inheritance-Tax-Secrets.co.uk

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Free Guide to Inheritance Tax Secrets 

Press Release Summary

A free 40 page guide to Inheritance Tax Planning which could save your family (potentially) hundreds of thousands of pounds in Inheritance Tax.  Most of the techniques covered are free too. Download it at http://www.Inheritance-Tax-Secrets.co.uk

Main body text

Most families would rather pass on money to the next generation rather than to Gordon Brown – they just never get round to taking professional advice on how to do it.

Now, Allied Professional Will Writers Ltd have written an easy to follow and free ebook which can be downloaded from www.Inheritance-Tax-Secrets.co.uk to make it easy for you to “cascade wealth down the generations.”  But Gordon Brown has once again tinkered with the rules on 21st March, so now is the time to do a quick and free review of the available options.

The book covers the usual options which you may well have seen listed here many times is the past, and a few which you will not have thought of.   Well worth the price - £0.

# # #        Happy to provide longer text if required.

Contact:

Contact Person: Stephen Pett (MD)
Company Name: Allied Professional Will Writers Ltd
Telephone Number: Press only: 01323 741200

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633 words on this vital Personal Finance issue 

Personal Legal Planning issues - Lasting Powers of Attorney

– EPA baby thrown out with bathwater

-         MAFIA trainees and fraudsters rub hands with glee!

-         Buy now while stocks last

From October 2007, new Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPA) can no longer be written.  New Lasting Powers of Attorney, based loosely on the Scottish model, will come in with the intention of “simplifying” the situation.

This is achieved partly by turning 7 pages of documents into 22 pages (at least, the draft documents were 22 pages long!) and also by helping fraudsters by allowing them never to tell the family that an LPA has been written or indeed acted on.

Currently, you can do pretty much everything an LPA achieves (with an EPA and an Advance Medical Directive – AMD) in just 7 pages.   The only thing not covered is accommodation issues – perhaps it might have been easier to allow EPAs to cover that rather than change the whole thing.

Lets take an example – I am getting a bit old and tired, and I want my children to have the authority to look after my finances, and to deal with medical decisions if I am unable to.

At the moment I would write a 5 page EPA, and a 2 page LPA – our fee for this is £85 (less if a Will is written at the same time) and there is no need to register the EPA unless I lose mental competence.  If the EPAs is registered (same cost as each part of the LPA - £120), my family must be notified.

Roll it forward to October, and I must write a Financial LPA and a Welfare LPA – 22 pages might cost at the very least £150, but worse is to come.   I need to get these countersigned by a business or professional person who must quiz me to make sure I am competent, that I understand what the documents do (they won’t know, so will have to study them first), that I am not being forced into writing them, and that there is nothing else which should prevent me from writing one (even I am not yet sure what that means!)

Clearly if you run a “family” business (get it?) you qualify as a person of substance to certify the LPA and “family” members can be appointed as the managers.   Cosa Nostra never had it so easy!

But I haven’t finished yet – both parts of the LPA must be registered BEFORE they can be used, even if I am still mentally competent, so that is likely to be another 2 lots of £120.

To summarise:

a)      NOW – Enduring Power of Attorney plus Advance Medical Directive - £85.  EPA must be registered (and family notified) only if I lose mental competence but may (if so written) be used immediately.  Accommodation matters not technically covered.

b)      FUTURE – 2 Lasting Powers of Attorney - £150 plus 2 lost of £120 before either can be used gives a total cost of £390. Family can be ignored totally, an no one need be notified of registration.

I understand their have been some issues of fraud with EPAs, but surely this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater – very little is gained by the new rules, and a VERY great deal is lost – less protection, easier fraud, much greater effort to set one up, much greater cost.

Lawyers and Will Writers have told the Government what they think of the new regime (mostly politely we believe) – let us hope they listen before Legal Planning becomes the latest area to be stifled by misguided Consumer Protection.  It is possible the final Regulations will improve the situation, but I doubt it.

My verdict is buy now while stocks last – no new Enduring Powers of Attorney can be granted after September.

THESE VIEWS ARE MINE ALONE

The author, Stephen Pett is a professional Will Writer and director of Allied Professional Will Writers Ltd, a Regional Director of the Society of Will Writers,  a Director of SWW Trust Corporation and of Will Custodian Ltd which provides secure storage and review facilities for Will and other Legal Planning Documents.

His website www.apww.co.uk offers an entirely free educational email course on Legal and Financial Planning.

We advocate that Will, Powers of Attorney and Advance Medical Directives should be written only by professional who carry out a minimum of 20 hours a years Continuing Professional Development specifically on those subjects.  Members of the public should ask that specific question before proceeding.

Specialist Solicitors may be able to so confirm (though many never do any significant training on the subject, so you need a specialist – those that think it is easy are wrong!), members of the Society of Will Writers (www.WillWriters.com) and the Institute of Professional Will Writers are required to carry out such ongoing training.

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Stephen Pett

MD of Allied Professional Will Writers Ltd (covering England & Wales)and Will Custodian Ltd (which offers a secures storage service for Wills with the vital ingredients of an Annual Newsletter and checklist to help people review their planning with an optional helpline service.

Director of Probate & Trustee Services Ltd., a Trust Corporation carrying out very economical Probate work throughout England and Wales. www.SWWTrust.co.uk  

I also run a website for Financial Advisers (http://www.IFAbonus.co.uk) and edit a weekly newsletter for them, so I am pretty up to date on Financial Planning Matters too.

Regional Director of the Society of Will Writers