(the final piece — and the one that ties everything together)
Trusts, family investment companies, wills, powers of attorney, gifting strategies. This is where long-term planning meets legacy.
This is step eight because it depends on everything before it.
You can't set up a trust without understanding the tax position. You can't fund it without understanding the investment strategy. You can't protect it without the right cover in place. That's why this comes last — not because it's least important, but because it only works when everything else is in order.
Family Investment Companies are one of the most powerful planning tools available.
A FIC lets you gift future growth to your children while retaining control. You stay as a director. You decide what happens. But the shares — and therefore the future value — belong to the next generation. Properly structured, this can significantly reduce inheritance tax while keeping you in charge.
We've been setting these up for years. The structure, the articles of association, the share classes — it all matters. Get it wrong and you create problems, not solutions.
The basics that too many people overlook.
We encourage every client to have these in place:
These aren't complicated. But without them, your family faces unnecessary delay, cost, and stress at the worst possible time.
Gifts from regular income — the IHT exemption most people miss.
If you can demonstrate that gifts come from surplus income — and don't affect your standard of living — they're immediately exempt from inheritance tax. No seven-year wait. No taper relief. Just gone.
We construct portfolios specifically to produce the right kind of regular income for this purpose. Direct equity holdings that generate consistent dividends, structured to support a documented gifting strategy. It's where investment management and estate planning meet — and it's a perfect example of why we consider all eight aspects together.
Different trusts for different purposes.
Bare trusts for grandchildren's investments. Absolute trusts for life policies. Discretionary trusts when flexibility matters. Discounted gift trusts for estate planning. Each has different tax treatment, different costs, and different levels of complexity. We start with what you're trying to achieve — not with the most complicated structure we can find.
Setting up a trust is the easy part. Managing it is where the value lies.
Trusts need investment management, tax returns, trustee meetings, distributions, record-keeping.
We built the technology that manages all of this. It's what our platform was designed for. Trustees get full visibility, full reporting, and full compliance support.
Already have trusts? We'll review them.
Many of our clients come to us with trusts already in place — sometimes set up years ago by a different adviser. We review the structure, the investments, the tax position, and whether the trust still achieves what it was designed to do. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it needs updating. Either way, we'll tell you.
How this connects to your wider plan
Estate planning is the final piece — but it connects back to protection, taxation, investments, and the very first step.
Trusts & estate planning is step eight. The final piece.
Everything before this builds towards it.
Everything after this is about maintaining it.
