The current situation creates a need for action to ensure your family’s financial wellbeing.
Tilney, for example, has highlighted the fact that as many children of wealthier clients have been doing very well for themselves, the desire or urgency to consider using the gifting rules under estate planning may not have been a priority.
But with many people finding their personal finances now more stretched than at any other time, with large numbers of businesses struggling to survive during the lockdown period, now could be the optimal time to gift assets.
Whether to make any gifts to struggling relatives via a trust to maximise the benefit of inheritance tax planning, or to give it as a simple gift, is a consideration that depends on individual circumstances and should not be done without specialist advice.
The donor has to be confident, if using the latter, that he or she will survive that gift by seven years to ensure it is free of IHT if the estate is big enough to fall within the IHT net.
There is one other consideration that people who are looking at their IHT planning should think about too, which is writing any life insurance into a trust so it remains outside of the estate on death for IHT.
It also means this money is accessible straight away for those who are left behind, without having to clear probate.
Unsurprisingly, the HM Courts and Tribunals Service has most of its staff working from home, causing delays with processing probate.
The extra strain brought about by the additional number of deaths during this period due to Covid-19 is adding to delays. The turnaround time for grants to be issued is expected to be longer than the typical four weeks, according to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Delays in the grant of probate causes considerable problems for those left behind, with expenses – other than funeral costs – often needing to be paid out of a relative’s pocket until probate is granted.
With finances stretched to the absolute limit for many people, even for those who were previously earning well and comfortably off, it is going to be very hard to deal with.
The more advisers can bring themselves to discuss the financial implications of passing on, even at this difficult time, the more help they will give their clients and their loved ones when the time comes.
Let’s hope for all of us that is still some way off yet.
Alison Steed is a freelance journalist
