How to keep the lot in six steps

Estate planning is not one decision, it is six — and the order matters. This is the whole journey, with the current figures, in the sequence a good adviser would take you through it.

Nobody sits down one afternoon and "does" estate planning. It happens in pieces, usually prompted by something — a diagnosis, a birthday with a zero on the end, a friend's family falling out over a house.

The trouble is that the pieces have an order. Setting up a trust before you have severed a joint tenancy achieves nothing. Worrying about inheritance tax when your estate is nowhere near the threshold wastes money you could be giving to your grandchildren. And the step people leave out entirely — the lasting power of attorney — is the one their families end up most desperate for.

So here is the order. Six steps, what each one actually does, what it costs, and how to tell whether it applies to you at all.

1. Write a will

   Everything else in this list either depends on your will or is pointless without it. It is the foundation, and for most people it costs between £150 and £400.

   Without a will, the intestacy rules apply. They are unsentimental. Your unmarried partner inherits nothing regardless of how long you were together. Your spouse does not automatically get everything — if you have children they receive your personal possessions, the first £322,000 and half the remainder, with the rest going to the children. Stepchildren you never legally adopted get nothing.

   What to get right:

   • Two witnesses who are not beneficiaries and not married to beneficiaries. A witness who inherits loses their gift.
   • Guardians for any children under 18. This is the single most important clause for young parents.
   • A residue clause, so there is no gap if a gift fails.
   • Where the original is stored — and someone who knows.

   Redo it if you marry — marriage automatically revokes an existing will. Divorce does not revoke it, which causes its own problems.

   → Read the full wills guide

2. Set up the right trust — if you actually need one

   This is the step most oversold and least understood. Plenty of families need no trust at all. But if you are a couple who own a home and you are worried about care fees, there is one that genuinely works.

   A property protection trust (also called a life interest trust) is written into both wills. When the first partner dies, their share of the home passes into trust rather than to the survivor outright. The survivor can live there for the rest of their life. But because that half is not theirs, it is generally not counted when the council assesses them for care fees.

   What it is worth

   On a £400,000 home, roughly £200,000 stays with the children rather than going towards care fees. Wills containing a trust typically cost £500–£2,000 for the pair.

   Check this first: the trust only works if you own the property as tenants in common, not joint tenants. As joint tenants, the whole house passes automatically to the survivor and there is no share to protect. Severing the joint tenancy is quick and inexpensive — and if it has not been done, the trust in your will is decoration.

   And the honest warning: a trust is not free money. Many trusts face entry charges of up to 20%, ten-yearly charges of up to 6%, and exit charges. Giving your home away in your lifetime to dodge care fees is a different thing entirely and can be reversed under the deliberate deprivation of assets rules, which have no time limit.

   → How property protection trusts work

3. Understand your inheritance tax position

   Before you spend anything on tax planning, find out whether you have a tax problem. Most estates do not.

   • £325,000 nil-rate band per person, taxed at 0%.
   • £175,000 residence nil-rate band per person, if your home passes to children, grandchildren or other direct descendants — capped at the value of the home, and tapered away above an estate of £2,000,000.
   • Married couples and civil partners transfer unused allowances, so a couple leaving a home to descendants can reach £1,000,000.
   • Everything above the available allowances is taxed at 40%.

   If your total estate is comfortably under your allowances, you do not have an inheritance tax problem and should not be sold a solution to one. If you are over — or close, and your house is still appreciating — the cheapest fixes come first: make sure the wills let the residence allowance apply, make sure executors will claim the transferable band, and use the £3,000 annual gift exemption every year rather than in one late lump.

   Two often-missed reliefs: regular gifts out of surplus income are immediately exempt if they do not affect your standard of living and you keep records; and leaving 10% of your net estate to charity cuts the rate on everything else from 40% to 36%.

   → Work out your position with the calculator

4. Put lasting powers of attorney in place

   The step people skip, and the one families most regret skipping. A will handles what happens after you die. An LPA handles what happens if you are alive but cannot make decisions.

   There are two, and you want both:

   • Property and financial affairs — bills, bank accounts, pensions, selling a home.
   • Health and welfare — medical treatment, care arrangements, where you live.

   Each costs £82 to register with the Office of the Public Guardian. Being a spouse or next of kin gives you no authority over someone else's money — sole accounts get frozen and a house in one name cannot be sold.

   Without an LPA, your family must apply to the Court of Protection for a deputyship: months of delay, a much larger bill, and annual supervision for the rest of your life. You must make an LPA while you still have capacity. Afterwards is too late.

   → How to set up an LPA

5. Name executors who can actually do the job

   Your executors will value the estate, deal with HMRC, apply for probate, pay the debts in the right legal order and distribute what is left. It takes six to twelve months for a typical estate, and they are personally liable if they get it wrong.

   Choose:

   • Two or more, so nothing stalls if one cannot act — and a named replacement.
   • People likely to outlive you. Naming only your same-age spouse is a common gap.
   • Someone organised. Beneficiaries can be executors, and usually are.

   Be careful appointing a bank or a professional as executor in the will itself: their fees come out of the estate, sometimes as a percentage of its value, and removing them later is difficult. Your executors can always instruct a solicitor when the time comes — which keeps the choice, and the fee negotiation, with your family.

   Then make their job possible: leave a list of accounts, policies, pensions and subscriptions, and tell them where the original will is. Probate costs £300 to apply for on estates over £5,000.

   → What executors have to do

6. Get expert advice on the parts that need it

   Not everything here needs a professional. A simple will for a straightforward estate does not. An LPA usually does not — the GOV.UK service is genuinely usable.

   Do pay for advice if:

   • You have been married before, or there are stepchildren, or children from different relationships.
   • Your estate is over the allowances, or near the £2,000,000 taper threshold.
   • You want a trust — particularly any lifetime trust.
   • You own a business, farmland or property abroad.
   • A beneficiary is disabled, vulnerable, or receiving means-tested benefits.
   • You are deliberately leaving someone out, or expect a challenge.

   Check who you are dealing with. "Will writer" is not a protected title in England & Wales — anyone can use it. Look for a solicitor regulated by the SRA, a STEP member (TEP after their name), or an Institute of Professional Willwriters member, and verify them on the public register rather than taking a badge on a website at face value.

   Walk away from anyone who cold-calls, runs a "free" seminar with a hard close, guarantees your home is safe from the council, or wants a large payment upfront for a trust you did not ask about.

   → Talk to a regulated adviser

The short version#

If you do nothing else this month: check whether you own your home as joint tenants or tenants in common, and find out whether you have a will that still reflects your life. Those two checks cost nothing and account for most of the value in this entire list.

Then work down: will, trust if you need one, tax position, LPAs, executors, advice where it earns its fee. In that order.

This is general information, not legal advice. Everyone's situation is different — speak to a qualified adviser before acting. KeepTheLot is an independent information service covering England & Wales. We are not a law firm.