Janice and James are 65 and 66 and have good discipline and control around their money. However, they had the following issues that they wanted advice on:
-They had been sat on cash deposits for a few years now, hoping that interest rates would eventually increase (which hasn’t happened)
-They were now considering other options to make their money work a bit harder including a “buy-to-let” property
-They had seen articles in the local papers about people having to dig deep into savings and in some cases sell their house to pay for long term care and wanted to understand more about this
-Now that their full state pensions had kicked in, they were considering making gifts to their children in their early 40s as in their words “it’s not making anything in the bank and we can’t take it with us”
-They wanted to make sure that that everything was in order with their estate in case anything happened to them.
-We gave an objective review of the pros and cons of investing in a buy-to-let property and its taxation, which after some thought they decided to pursue with an understanding of the risks involved
-We ran a detailed financial forecast for them using our software that showed the size of gifts we felt they could comfortably make to their children, without it compromising their financial security and the lifestyle that they wanted to lead
-We talked them through the implications for both them and their children when gifting capital assets in terms of long term care costs
-We told them it would be sensible to contact the lawyer who initially drafted their Wills to, if necessary, account for the gifts made to the children
-We advised them that they should also speak to the lawyer about putting enduring powers of attorney in place in case anything happens to either of them. This would allow the other spouse to make financial decisions on their behalf without going through the courts
-James had a small UK based investment that had performed poorly and would require UK probate on death. After explaining how the encashment would be taxed, they decided to encash this to simplify matters with their estate, adding the proceeds to the children’s gifts.
The parents were grateful for this advice, this was all they needed from us and we were happy to help. They have not gone on to be ongoing clients of ours like their friends, whose circumstances are very different. At the time of writing we are set to speak to their children as Janice and James are very keen for them to get advice on investing some of this gifted money sensibly for the long term.
