Trust Issues, FAQs

A trust is a legal document in which one party, known as a settlor, gives another party, the trustee, the right to hold title to their property or assets for the benefit of a third party, the beneficiary.  

Trusts are most commonly established to provide legal protection for the settlor’s assets and to make sure those assets are distributed according to the wishes of the settlor. The benefits of holding assets in a trust can be as follows:- 

• Having instructions set out in a trust can be time saving  
• Having a clear letter of wishes to accompany the Trust can help simplification of administration process 
• Certain trusts can assist in alleviating issues with and mitigating inheritance tax 

An Asset Preservation Trust is a special type of trust instrument offered by Universal Wealth. These trusts are used for the primary purpose of Asset Preservation Planning and the intention behind the trust is to protect the client’s assets that could potentially be lost to the financial cost consequences of long-term care.  

If you are a client of Universal Wealth we would recommend that you seek legal advice as to your current position. More specifically, if you used their services and opted to enter into a asset preservation trust therefore charge a property into trust, in these circumstances we would recommend that you contact our firm specifically due to our experience in dealing with these matters.  

Find out more about how we can help you, and contact us.

Unfortunately, it remains the case that IDR Law are unable to assist in cases where clients of Universal Wealth have invested their cash into trust. We are unable to assist as currently the position is that Steven and Melanie Long have not disclosed the whereabouts of the funds received from clients of Universal Wealth therefore this currently remains unrecoverable.

The consequences of the legal charge created as a result of client’s property being charged into these trusts has the undesirable outcome of creating significant capital gains tax liability which becomes payable upon the sale of the property. This tax consequence is often unknown to the client as it is unfortunately the case that Universal Wealth did not advise their clients of these consequences at the time of preparing and signing the trusts.  

When asking how much will be spent on legal fees, there is unfortunately no definitive answer as each case differs dependent upon various factors that may come up during the course of our instruction. Our previous clients who we have represented regarding the setting aside of their legal charges have paid upfront costs which will have the outcome of saving significant costs in the future.