Trust and personal injury trust solicitors

Setting up a trust

A trust gives you control over what happens to your assets, when and who benefits – whether that means protecting a child’s inheritance until they are ready for it, ringfencing a compensation award so it does not affect benefit entitlements, or ensuring a vulnerable family member is provided for long after you are no longer able to do so yourself.

As a legal structure with varying complexity, deciding the type, nature and benefit to give through a trust is not always a straightforward decision. The main types are Bare Trusts, Discretionary Trusts, Personal Injury Trusts and Will Trusts.

For families caring for a loved one with a disability or long-term condition, we provide specialist advice on trusts that protect both assets and benefits entitlements, helping you plan confidently for a future when you may no longer be there to provide direct support.

Why set up a trust?

People set up trusts for many reasons:

• To protect and control assets for the benefit of family members – cash, property, shares or land
• To manage when children or grandchildren gain access to inherited assets
• To provide for a family member with a disability or who lacks capacity to manage their own affairs
• To pass on assets during your lifetime in a tax-efficient way
• To create a will trust that takes effect after your death
• To protect a personal injury compensation award from affecting means-tested benefits entitlements

How our solicitors support you

We take time to understand your family, your assets and your intentions before recommending a structure. Our trust solicitors guide you through every stage of the process, from identifying the right type of trust for your circumstances to drafting a robust trust deed, advising on trustee appointments and ensuring compliance with current regulations. We also advise on the tax implications of different trust structures, including inheritance tax, income tax and capital gains tax considerations, so your planning is efficient as well as effective.

For families caring for a loved one with a disability or long-term condition, we provide specialist advice on trusts that protect both assets and benefits entitlements, helping you plan confidently for a future when you may no longer be there to provide direct support.

Personal Injury Trusts – protecting your compensation and your benefits

A Personal Injury Trust is a specific type of trust designed to hold compensation awarded following a personal injury claim. This can include road traffic accidents, clinical negligence, workplace injuries and other serious harm. Without one, compensation paid directly into a personal bank account is treated as a capital asset and can affect eligibility for means-tested benefits such as Universal Credit and means tested care provision.

By placing the award into a Personal Injury Trust, the compensation is held separately from personal assets and is disregarded in means-tested benefit calculations – preserving entitlements that can be critical to long-term care and financial stability.

Our solicitors advise on Personal Injury Trust structures, appoint trustees, draft trust deeds and ensure the arrangement is set up correctly from the outset, giving injured individuals and their families confidence that the compensation secured through their claim is properly protected for the long term.

Support for trustees

Being asked to act as a trustee carries significant responsibility and should not be accepted without a clear understanding of what the role involves. A trustee is legally responsible for managing, protecting and distributing the assets held in trust in line with the terms set out.

Our solicitors advise trustees at every stage, from taking on the role to stepping down, ensuring their obligations are met and their personal position is protected.

Key concerns for trusts and Personal Injury Trusts

The most common concerns we hear are around complexity, cost and control. People worry that setting up a trust is expensive or bureaucratic, that they will lose access to their own assets, or that the wrong structure will trigger unintended tax consequences.

Our team helps address these concerns upfront. We explain the realistic costs involved for setting up a trust as well as the benefits of differing trust structures, who retains control, the role of the trustee, and any tax planning considerations that may arise.

For Personal Injury Trusts specifically, timing is everything. We help families to act within specified timeframes, in a way that helps families act quickly without feeling rushed into decisions they do not fully understand.