Wills, Tax & Trusts Ltd

Call Directions Website

Wills, Tax & Trusts Ltd Specialist estate, inheritance tax and succession planning for families, business owners and their advisers in Wokingham, Berkshire. Founded by Ray L.

Best, author of Pension Paradigm. 5.0 ★ from 26 Google reviews.

A pattern rather than a client, and one we see more often than you would expect.A profitable company, built over thirty ...
23/10/2026

A pattern rather than a client, and one we see more often than you would expect.

A profitable company, built over thirty years, worth several million on paper. The owner dies. The value is real - and completely unrealisable, because what made the business work was him.

The buyers who were interested last year now see a company with no managing director, key relationships held in one person's head, and a family who need to sell. The price reflects that. Meanwhile the inheritance tax bill is calculated on the value at the date of death, not the value the family eventually gets.

Since April 2026 the arithmetic has sharpened. Business property relief at 100% now applies only to the first £2.5 million per person, with 50% relief above that - an effective 20% charge on the excess. A couple has up to £5 million between them. Above that, there is a real bill on an asset that is hard to turn into money quickly.

What changes the outcome is almost never done in the last year. Cross-option agreements so the surviving shareholders can buy the shares and the family receives cash. Life cover written into trust, paying out immediately and outside the estate. A second person who knows how the business runs. And a clear-eyed view of what the business is actually worth without its founder.

If your wealth is mostly in a company you run, the question worth asking is not what it is worth. It is what it would be worth six months after you stopped turning up.

Link in the comments.

General information only - not advice on your circumstances.

Nine days to the Budget, and the speculation is well underway. It is worth separating what is settled from what is being...
19/10/2026

Nine days to the Budget, and the speculation is well underway. It is worth separating what is settled from what is being guessed at.

Already law, and not dependent on anything announced on 28 October:

• From 6 April 2027, unused pension funds and most pension death benefits count as part of your estate for inheritance tax.

• Since 6 April 2026, business and agricultural property relief at 100% is capped at £2.5 million per person, with 50% relief above that. Unused allowance passes to a surviving spouse.

• The nil-rate band is £325,000 and the residence nil-rate band £175,000, both frozen until April 2031.

Not law, and currently just speculation: changes to gifting rules, to the seven-year period, to reliefs, to rates. Every autumn produces a crop of these and most of them do not happen.

The practical consequences is that the planning worth doing now is the planning that is worth doing anyway. Knowing what your estate is worth. Knowing where the tax would fall. Having a will that reflects your family as it is today. None of that gets wasted whatever is announced.

What is not worth doing is making an irreversible decision on the strength of a newspaper headline. Gifts cannot be recalled, and assets settled into trust cannot simply be taken back.

General information only - not advice on your circumstances. Correct as at October 2026.

"I have been a client of this Company for many years and always found them to be friendly, helpful and professional in a...
16/10/2026

"I have been a client of this Company for many years and always found them to be friendly, helpful and professional in all my dealings with them." - Cathy.

We notice what these reviews tend to mention, and it is almost never the paperwork.

It is usually some version of "they explained it so we understood it" or "nothing was rushed". Which tells you what people actually find difficult about this. Not the drafting - the deciding. Who should be trusted with what, whether it is fair, and how to have a conversation with your children about money without it going badly.

That is the part of the work that takes the time. The documents are the record of decisions already made.

If you have been putting this off because it feels like a big conversation, it is worth knowing that the first meeting is mostly listening.

General information only - not advice on your circumstances.

The most expensive sentence in estate planning.It is said with complete sincerity, usually by people who genuinely do ge...
12/10/2026

The most expensive sentence in estate planning.

It is said with complete sincerity, usually by people who genuinely do get on. Sometime it works. Often what happens is this: one sibling has done more of the caring and feels that should count. Another has already had help with a house deposit and does not think it should. Somebody’s spouse has an opinion. And the will, which said “divided equally between my children”, turns out to have answered the easy question and none of the hard ones.

The house is the usual flashpoint, because it cannot be divided. One person wants to keep it, another needs the money, and there is no version where everyone gets what they want.

What helps is specificity, written down while you are here to explain it. Who gets first refusal on the house and at what valuation. What happens to the lifetime gift one child already received. Which items matter and to whom - and “my jewellery to be divided as they see fit” is not an answer, it is a question passed to people who are grieving.

A letter of wishes sits alongside the will and lets you say the things a legal document cannot. It is not binding, and it is often the single most useful page in the file.

If you have children who gets on, that is a reason to be clear rather than a reason not to bother.

Link in the comments.

General information only - not advice on your circumstances.

For the accountants, advisers and solicitors following this page.HMRC published a second technical note on the inheritan...
09/10/2026

For the accountants, advisers and solicitors following this page.

HMRC published a second technical note on the inheritance tax treatment of pensions in August, covering the mechanics rather than the principle: notional pension property, the information-sharing requirements between schemes and personal representatives, withholding notices, the pensions direct payment scheme, and clearance.

It is worth reading properly if you have clients with substantial defined contribution pots, because it is the first material that answers the practical question - not “is the pension in the estate” but “who tells whom, in what order, and by when”.

Three implications we are already working through with firms:

1. Executor briefing becomes part of the planning conversation, not an afterthought. Your client’s named executor is about to acquire a reporting duty nobody has explained to them.

2. Liquidity planning gets earlier. The tax falls due before probate, on an asset the estate cannot access without the scheme’s cooperation.

3. Expression of wish forms need reviewing against the will, not in isolation. We are finding plenty that contradict each other.

HMRC has said further secondary legislation and guidance will follow ahead of April 2027, so this is not the final word.

Happy to discuss a case in confidence. Link to the technical note in the comments.

General information only - not advice on your circumstances.

Six months tomorrow. On 6 April 2027, unused pension funds come into the inheritance tax net.Six months sounds comfortab...
05/10/2026

Six months tomorrow. On 6 April 2027, unused pension funds come into the inheritance tax net.

Six months sounds comfortable. It is not, for a straightforward reason: the useful options take time to run. Establishing what is actually in an estate takes weeks. Changing a will takes weeks. Restructuring how a business is held takes months. And any plan built around lifetime gifts needs 7 years to work fully - a clock that does not start until the gift is made.

What is worth doing between now and Christmas, in order:

• Add your pension to the estate valuation and see whether the total crosses £325,000 each, or £500,000 each where a main residence passes to children or grandchildren.

• Check who is nominated to receive your pension death benefits, and when you last looked.

• Check the will says what you want it to say, now that the pension forms part of the picture.

• Work out where the cash to pay any tax would come from.

The budget on 28 October may change other things. It will not change this one - the pension rules are already law.

Link in comments.

General information only - not advice on your circumstances. Correct as at October 2026.

Most people choose an executor and never tell them what it involves.It is usually a spouse, an adult child, sometimes a ...
02/10/2026

Most people choose an executor and never tell them what it involves.

It is usually a spouse, an adult child, sometimes a friend. The conversation, if it happens at all, is roughly: “you’re the executor” - and then nothing for 20 years.

What they are actually agreeing to: valuing an estate, tracking down every account and policy, working out the inheritance tax, paying it before probate is granted, dealing with HMRC, and distributing what is left without falling out with anybody. Personal liability attaches to getting it wrong.

And from April 2027 it gets heavier. Unused pension funds come into the inheritance tax estate, and it is the personal representatives - your executors - who will be responsible for reporting and paying that tax. They will need information from pension schemes they have never dealt with, on a deadline.

Three things worth doing this month, none of which take long:

• Tell them. Actually tell them, and check they are willing.

• Leave a list. Accounts, policies, pensions, the name of your accountant, where the will is kept.

• Consider whether one person alone is the right answer, or whether a professional alongside them would be fairer to everybody.

A good will makes the decisions. A briefed executor makes them happen.

Link in the comments.

General information only - not advice on your circumstances.

Four questions worth asking before April 2027 – and one date worth putting in the diary.1. If my pension were counted in...
28/09/2026

Four questions worth asking before April 2027 – and one date worth putting in the diary.

1. If my pension were counted in my estate today, would my estate face inheritance tax? Many people who confidently answer no have not done the sum with the pension included.

2. Who is currently nominated to receive my pension death benefits, and when did I last check?

3. Does my will still do what I intend, now that the pension forms part of the picture?

4. If tax were payable, where would the cash come from – without forcing a sale?

Question four is the one that catches families out. Inheritance tax falls due before probate completes. An estate can be wealthy on paper and still leaves the family scrambling.

The date: the Budget is on 28 October. Speculation will build over the next month, and some of it will be wrong. The sensible response is not to guess what might change but to know your own position well enough to act calmly if it does – because gifts cannot be recalled and assets settled into trust cannot simply be taken back.

A lifetime of work deserves to become a legacy, not an avoidable tax bill. There is time to plan properly. There is less time than people think.

0118 934 7920 • General information only – not advice on your circumstances.

The liquidity problem, which is the one that actually catches business owners out.Inheritance tax is generally due by th...
25/09/2026

The liquidity problem, which is the one that actually catches business owners out.

Inheritance tax is generally due by the end of the sixth month after death. Probate usually is not granted until at least some of it has been paid. So executors can find themselves needing to pay tax on an estate they do not yet legally control.

For families whose wealth is in a trading company, farmland or property, that is not a forced-sale problem – selling a business property quickly, in a hurry, with a deadline that the buyer can see.

There are routes through it. Inheritance tax on qualifying business and agricultural property can now be paid over ten years, interest-free. Under the direct payment scheme, tax can be paid directly from the deceased's bank accounts. Executors' loans exist. And life cover written into trust pays out immediately and outside the estate, which is often the simplest answer of all.

But every one of those needs arranging in advance. None of them can be organised in month five.

If your estate is asset-rich and cash-light, the question worth asking is not what the tax bill will be. It is where the cash comes from.

0118 934 7920 • General information only – not advice on your circumstances.

Address

3 Trinity Court, Molly Millars Lane
Hurst
RG412PY

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 3:30pm

Telephone

+441189347920

Website

, ,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Wills, Tax & Trusts Ltd posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share