A Trust is a highly effective way of organising personal and business affairs. For private clients, the benefits of establishing a trust mainly relate to effective estate and inheritance planning, asset preservation, wealth management, investment planning and avoidance of forced heirship rules.

Trusts are, in principle, a very simple concept. A trust is a private legal arrangement where the ownership of assets (which might include property, shares or cash) is transferred to second party (the Trustee) to manage for the benefit of a third party or parties (the beneficiaries to the trust).

We advise on all types of Trust Structure in both onshore and offshore jurisdictions.

A Foundation is mostly used for wealth management, estate planning and asset holding and can be used for either charitable or non-charitable purposes.

A Foundation can hold a range of assets such as unquoted shares, listed shares, cash and property and has many similarities to a Trust whilst operating like a company with no shareholder or members.

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OFFSHORE

Offshore investing can also be done through a portfolio bond enabling the investor to consolidate of the majority of their assets into one place. This allows you to be able to view your portfolio performance easily, allowing quick and accurate decisions to be made and sales and purchases of a wide variety of instruments to be made.

Portfolio bonds in addition to their transactional and reporting capabilities provide a secure tax-free environment, allowing the portfolio bond to be managed without the payment of capital gains tax.

Bond Providers are usually located on the Isle of Man, normally used as a tax haven by the vast majority of the largest financial companies in the world. This jurisdiction is highly regulated and there are specific laws pertaining to the protection of policyholders. The Policyholder Protection Scheme pays up to 90% of the value of underlying policy, in the case of the portfolio bond provider defaulting. This law was passed in 1991, and since that date no portfolio bond provider on the Isle of Man has defaulted.

As the Isle of Man has no Inheritance tax and no Capital gains tax, investments made into portfolio bonds appreciate at a much greater rate than if the investment were in a tax paying country.

Bonds can be written on a Life Assured basis, meaning that should the owner die whilst the bond is invested the value of the bond at the time of death will be paid free of Inheritance Tax/Death Duties to the beneficiaries of the deceased’s estate. Therefore they can be very useful instruments in tax planning.

Your will lets you decide what happens to your money, property and possessions after your death.

If you make a will you can also make sure you don’t pay more Inheritance Tax than you need to.

You can write your will yourself, but we can assist you in receiving the correct advice to make sure your will is interpreted and drafted to your individual requirements.

You need to get your will formally witnessed and signed to make it legally valid.

If you want to update your will, you need to make an official alteration or make a new will.

If you die without a will (intestate), the law determines who benefits from your estate.