Last week we introduced the concept of a trust and talked a little bit about how they work.

Today we need to go a little bit deeper and specifically talk about their application

in your financial planning. You'll be glad to know by the way that the fly that haunted me in last week's

video has been humanely removed from the studio.

So let's see how far we get.

I think there's going to be another episode in this little mini series, but let's put five minutes on the clock

down here.

Say a quick thank you to my friends at 7 Investment Management for continuing to sponsor

the show and let's

crack on. So the main uses for a trust are in organizing death benefits and

for doing some estate planning and hence inheritance tax planning very often.

So let's talk about death benefits first.

So we're talking about proceeds from a life insurance policy,

maybe from a pension fund if you die before retirement, stuff like that.

Why would you use a trust? Why not just let the money pay out into your

estate and let your will sort it out? Well, long time listeners will know that the reasons for doing this are twofold.

I held up two lots of two fingers, that's fourfold.

It's only twofold.

Firstly, benefits which are held in trust

do not form part of your estate.

And so they are not subject to the process called probate. Probate is the process where your

executors after you've died, have to add everything up that you own, take off what you owe,

...