Services
Family Protection Planning
Individual documents solve individual problems. A plan makes sure they work together.
Most people acquire their estate planning in pieces — a Will when the children were small, a policy taken out with a mortgage, a property bought jointly without much thought about how it was held. Each was sensible at the time. Together they often do not do what their owner assumes.
Family protection planning looks at the whole picture at once. It checks that your Will, your trusts, your LPAs, your pension nominations and the way your property is owned all point in the same direction — because a great many estates go wrong not through bad drafting but through good documents that contradict each other.
It also plans for the sequence of events rather than a single one. What happens if one of you dies. What happens if the survivor remarries. What happens if a child divorces, or is made bankrupt, or predeceases you. What happens if you both lose capacity before either of you dies.
What this covers
- A full audit of what you already have
- Existing Wills, trusts, LPAs, policies and title deeds, reviewed together.
- How your property is owned
- Joint tenants or tenants in common — and severing the tenancy where needed.
- Pension and policy nominations
- These pass outside your Will entirely, and are frequently out of date.
- Remarriage and bloodline protection
- Keeping assets within your family across the generations.
- Business succession
- Making sure a business interest passes to the right people on the right terms.
- Annual review
- Because families change, and a plan that is never revisited quietly goes out of date.
Common questions
Family Protection, answered plainly
- What is bloodline protection?
- It is planning that keeps an inheritance within your direct family line — typically through trusts — so that it is not lost to a beneficiary's divorce settlement, creditors, or a subsequent marriage after their death.
- Why does the way we own our house matter?
- If you own as joint tenants, your share passes automatically to the survivor regardless of what your Will says. If you own as tenants in common, each share can be dealt with in your Will and potentially placed in trust. It is one of the most consequential details in estate planning and one of the most commonly overlooked.
- How often should a plan be reviewed?
- Every five years as a matter of course, and immediately after a marriage, divorce, death, birth, house move, business sale, or a significant change in someone's health.
Related
Often planned alongside
Wills
Ensure your wishes are clearly documented and the people you love are properly considered.
Trust Planning
Trust structures designed to protect assets and provide for future generations.
Lasting Powers of Attorney
Put trusted people in place to make important decisions if you are unable to make them yourself.
Start the conversation
Planning for tomorrow starts today.
You don’t need to have all the answers. That’s what we’re here for. Let’s start with a conversation about your family, your assets and what matters most to you.