Estate Planning Solicitors

What is estate planning?

Estate planning is the process of setting up an efficient way to manage or transfer your assets, such as wealth, property and investments, in the future. You may do this to protect your assets in the event of a death or if an individual becomes incapable of making their own decisions regarding their affairs.

Why choose to work with an estate planning solicitor?

While a standard Will is a sufficient way to divide up your assets after your death, estate planning can delve deeper into your assets and look at ways to efficiently manage and structure them, as well as how to protect them and pass them on.

Estate planning may be for you if:

• You hold assets abroad, or in more than one country.
• You have wealth and intend to pass it on in the future to family.
• You are part of a blended family or have individuals dependent on you due to specific needs or additional needs.
• You have significant assets, or a variety of different assets such as property, valuable possessions, businesses or investments.

Our estate planning solicitors will speak to you to understand your situation and decide whether this is the right next step for you in order to protect your assets.

Our approach

There are many aspects to estate planning and each case is different. Our estate planning solicitors can help on a range of topics, and work with you to ensure you understand how your assets will be protected.

• We can help with your estate and tax planning, organising your estate with the aim of reducing your inheritance tax and protecting your wealth and assets for the future generations of your family.
• We can prepare Lasting Powers of Attorney, helping to secure personal and business affairs.
• If you’re looking to set up a Trust, we can assist with the process and help you manage the assets involved, whether it’s for your family members, beneficiaries or even long-term care plans.
• We’re able to help with deeds of gift and declarations of trust, allowing us to efficiently formalise transfers of assets, or even shared ownerships.

No matter your case, we aim to help come up with suitable solutions. We can even help with complex estate planning, where we will support you and your family, as well as any executors, to navigate difficult estates.

Our process

Every estate planning case is unique, and our solicitors have extensive experience managing a range of different cases, from those that are more straightforward to those that are complex. While your process may differ depending on the nature of your case, you can expect to follow a similar process structure:

Step 1: An initial conversation with you – once you’ve instructed us as your estate planning solicitor, we’ll learn all about your case and assets. We’ll discuss your wishes and goals and look at which route is the most suitable for you.

Step 2: Looking at your position – if you have an existing Will, we’ll take this into account. As well at this stage, we will review your assets and how they’re set up to see how we can improve the current structure.

Step 3: Begin building your new plan – once we have all the relevant information we need regarding your assets, we’ll start to form a new plan. We’ll discuss with you what we think is the right choice and come up with a suitable solution that you agree with.

Step 4: Putting the new plan into place – as soon as you’ve agreed with the new plan, we’ll begin putting it into place. We’ll prepare official documents and provide you with copies, as well as start the process of formalising the plan.

Step 5: Support following your case – our estate planning solicitors will provide ongoing support even when your case is resolved. We’ll be here to answer questions and are able to review your new plan or update it in the future if necessary.

Why choose Fisher Jones Greenwood

With over four decades of experience, we provide skilled expertise, tending to our clients’ needs and aiming to reach a suitable solution that solves your legal issues.

We’ll offer clear, plain English advice and support, so you won’t have to worry about confusing legal jargon, and we take the time to answer any questions you have, as we understand that estate planning can be a complex issue. We’ll be transparent with our advice, as we have your best interests at heart. Our fees will be carefully laid out, and you won’t be surprised later down the line with hidden costs.

Our estate planning solicitors will take the time to understand your case and will find the most suitable approach – no copy and paste method needed.

National scale, proven expertise

Fisher Jones Greenwood is part of Lawfront, a national group of regional law firms. Together, our private client teams total almost 180 specialists and hold seven Legal 500 rankings nationally, including three Tier 1.