Rights and duties of a trustee in relation to expenses incurred in transferring trust property to a beneficiary A trustee is under a duty to distribute the trust assets to the correct beneficiaries in the execution of the trust, which includes transferring the legal ownership of the trust assets to the beneficiaries. Any failure to...

This Q&A is relevant to situations in which the shares in the company are unquoted. The starting point for a valuation of unquoted shares is their open market value at the time of the transfer between a hypothetical willing buyer and willing seller. For the purposes of determining the price the shares would be expected...

When a Will becomes public A Will only becomes a public document if a grant of probate is required. This is usually dependent on the size of the estate at the time of the testator’s death. In applying for probate, the executors will send the original Will of the deceased to the Probate Registry. Once...

We have assumed that: The individual is domiciled in the UK and the shares in the company are UK situs property, and The individual does not pay full market rent for the occupation of the property The reservation of benefit treatment of a disposition for inheritance tax (IHT) purposes arises, by virtue of section 102(3) of the...

Does an executor with power reserved to them have a liability to pay inheritance tax on an estate or is this the sole responsibility of the proving executor? Where an executor has had power reserved, they should not be performing the actions of an executor in relation to the estate. If they wish to take...

Individuals can create a memorandum of digital assets with emails, usernames and passwords and store a copy of the memorandum with the Will or Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). However, even if Attorneys or personal representatives have express power to deal with a digital asset and are aware of usernames and passwords, they should not...

The executor is likely to have the power to access the deceased’s computer pursuant to their powers and duties as administrator. However, the deceased’s ownership of the computer does not necessarily mean that they also owned all the rights associated with the information stored on it. They might have had only a licence to use...

Section 25 of the Administration of Estates Act 1925 (AEA 1925) provides that the personal representative of a deceased person is under a duty, among other things, to exhibit on oath, when required to do so by the court, a full inventory of the estate and when so required render an account of the administration of...

Introduction One of the most common conversations with have with our clients relates to funeral and burial wishes. Some have a clear idea of location and specific personal elements that they want those left behind to follow through. Perhaps this is to be buried or interred with a loved one, or for their ashes to...

Background It may come as a surprise to some that the gift of cash is subject to a unique set of taxation rules. Only in recent decades have HMRC introduced the concept of gifts subject to a reservation coming at the same time as the introduction of the seven-year rule for potentially exempt transfers. What...