Trust Fund Beneficiary

Given that one will not gain access to the capital for six to seven years, and assuming the only restrictions on investments are those in the legislation, if the amount is really quite large, a bank/building society trust account is probably not going to be an appropriate investment. If the amount is large, there is a duty for the trustees to get advice from a competent person.

I would suspect that all the information is in the public domain and that executors would be under a duty to inform the grand-children of the details, but I don't know for certain. The trustees would be under a moral obligation to honour the known wishes of the grandparents, and not to impose constraints that the grandparents would not have imposed.

The exact wording or the will may be important in relation to the tax rate on the interest.

I am fairly sure that a trust will be established if it looks like a trust, even if the will doesn't actually use the word "trust".

Thanks David

I would not be comfortable specifying any level of risk with this capital. Having consulted an IFA, he says that (based on the no risk premise) bank/savings accounts are the only option. One child has 4 years of investment time remaining, the other has 7. The concern is that, certainly over 4 years, the market/investment may well not be able to recover from any dips. I don't believe that witholding the capital sum amount in any way contravenes the intent of the will.

Phil

But surely if the Will has gone to probate the information will be publicly available anyway unless it was a secret trust?

But your starting premise was that the grandchildren should become financially independent without it, which implies that you can take reasonable risks.

If you tell an IFA that your risk tolerance is very low, the only option

they will ever offer, for however long a period, is a bank/BS account, or probably several, with no more than £85,000 in each.

As a trustee, you are expected to make a risk decision based on the nature of the trust and to mitigate the risks by having plenty of diversity. You should probably be asking the beneficiaries as to their acceptable risk level.

Thanks David

I will discuss your comments with my sister (co-executor) to decide on an agreed level of risk.

Phil

Thanks Anthony

Publicly available where and in how much detail?

New to all this!

Phil

A google search threw up this:

Sorry I rushed that a bit - a UK Google search threw up

Thanks Anthony - didn't realise that this all became part of public record.

Phil