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Many readers will have seen stories in the media about house owners who have found their property sold from under their feet by fraudsters.

There are many schemes and scams around at the moment which target property owners, including those where a criminal impersonates the owner of the property, sells the property and keeps the proceeds. The real owner is left without their property or their money, which may be difficult or impossible to recover. There is a lot of advice available on official websites about the steps you can take to help protect your property. One important step is the registration of your property with the Land Registry. For many years, it has been compulsory to register your property with the Land Registry in certain circumstances, including selling or transferring a property, re-mortgaging a property or transferring a property you have inherited. This means that much of the land and property in England is now registered title. However, some land and property is still unregistered, particularly where it has not changed hands for many years, or in some rural and agricultural areas. The Land Registry identify that you are more at risk of fraud if your property is unregistered. The good news is that if your house or land is

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still unregistered, you do not have to wait for Legal Matters: a sale, transfer, re-mortgage or other trigger event before your property is registered. You Protecting Your Property can apply to register your house or land at any time. As well as giving some protection against fraud, there are other good reasons to register your property. Buyers may be reluctant to When a marriage or a civil partnership breaks down, consideration needs to be purchase an unregistered title and may insist that a seller registers their title before they will buy, prolonging the conveyancing process and maybe given to how the assets of the union are to even resulting in your property sale being lost. be divided. Assets can include the home, Registering your property for the first time puts savings, cars and other valuables but also you ahead of the game; it enables you to clarify pensions. the extent of the land you own, and address any problems such as missing deeds or responsibility Indeed the pensions can be the most valuable asset and care has to be exercised in how they are treated and how they are divided. Usually, pensions are dealt with in one of the following ways: for boundaries and rights of way at the same time, rather than leaving these problems until you sell, transfer or re-mortgage, or worse still, leaving the problem for your Executors to sort 1. Pension sharing. This is where one pension is out should you pass away.divided to create essentially two pensions, a reduced pension for the member of the pension scheme and a new pension for the other person. Once registered, the Land Registry Title Register 2. Pension attachment. This is where a court largely determines ownership and for that makes an order directing that some of the pension reason, first registration is a procedure which payable to one person is paid to the other. 3. Offsetting. This is where the pensions are left untouched but the share of other assets are adjusted to take into account the value of pensions. needs to be dealt with carefully and accurately; the information in this article is general in nature and specific advice should always be sought. Before you even think about dealing with pensions William James is a you need to know their value. The starting point is often the provision of a Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (“CETV”). This needs to be provided in Solicitor with Shacklocks LLP with many years of all cases. Whilst the CETV is important, further experience in property information is often needed in terms of benefit work. To find out how statements so that the full terms of the pension can be considered. we can help you with registration of your It is important to understand the difference between property, contact different pension types. Some pensions are pots of William or a member money which can sometimes be converted into cash of our property team (subject to tax). Other pensions simply give a person the right to receive an income from a particular date until their death. on 01773 822333, 01773 743513 or 01332 559281, or e-mail enquiries@shacklocks.co.uk

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Legal Matters: The difficulty is that the CETV for one scheme might produce completely different pension Breakdown of a Marriage benefits to the CETV in another scheme. You might share a particular pension equally but the reality in terms of what you might each receive in or Civil Partnership: Dividing the Pensions Cassandra Worton, Partner with Shacklocks LLP and a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, explains some of the your pocket could be significantly different. The court is generally concerned about the effect of a pension sharing order, especially when people might have been together for a long time. mystery behind Trusts. The CETV provided by a pension scheme might not be a true representation of the value Trusts are a very well established part of English law, but are generally not available in many European countries. So what are they, and of that pension. In some cases, especially some public sector pensions, the CETV provided can significantly understate the true worth of a pension. how did they come about? There are obviously many different pension Put as simply as possible, a Trust will arise where a schemes in existence. Each will probably be different to the next. It is very important that you person transfers property or assets into the name receive the right advice and that the true value of their chosen Trustees, for the Trustees to hold of each pension is understood and shared fairly. that property or those assets for certain purposes Often it is necessary to involve other experts, and on certain terms, for the benefit of specific for example pension actuaries, who will produce persons or a group of people. comprehensive reports to assist in the division of pension assets. The information given above is To better understand Trusts we can take a look necessarily general and cannot be relied upon in back to the times of the Crusades. Trusts first any particular case. began to take shape in medieval England when men were travelling abroad to join the Crusades. They would transfer their property to a trusted friend for them to look after, manage and protect until their return, which may not be for many years. The moral obligation imposed on the friend is one of the earliest forms of a Trust, which over the centuries has become embedded in our legal system. At Shacklocks LLP we are committed to helping you to understand the true worth of pensions and to help you receive a fair financial settlement which will meet your needs. Shacklocks LLP family law team are currently offering all new clients an initial free half hour appointment. To find out more, contact Ben Stubbins and his team on 01773 822333 or email

bens@shacklocks.co.uk.

If we fast forward to the present day, the reasons to use a Trust are broadly the same as in medieval England; there are different types of Trusts and there are many different types of situations which may create Trusts. Trusts may be set up in a lifetime, or through a Will following death. Trusts may provide circumstances in which beneficiaries will become absolutely entitled to the Trust Fund, or they may provide flexibility by allowing for discretion to be exercised as to who should Ben Stubbins benefit.

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Legal Matters Legal Matters: Shacklocks Solicitors Whilst the idea that someone travelling abroad may leave their property in Trust to be managed Trusts In each edition legal advisors from Shacklocks deal with important legal topics. This month Marion Vesey (pictured) invites us to think about making a decision that will benefit whilst they are away is still very useful today, Trusts may be used closer to home to protect and manage property or money in other circumstances too. For example, a parent may set up a Trust in their lifetime or through their Will for a child, or for an adult son or daughter who is not able to manage their own affairs perhaps because of future generations. disability or mental capacity issues. A married Making a Will is a serious business. It is a time which gives many people cause to stop and think about how they want to be remembered when they are gone. person may provide in their Will for their surviving spouse to have a life interest in their half of the family home thereby protecting that half of the home for the next generation. A Trust may be used where someone receives damages as a result Many people are attracted by the idea of doing something to help others less fortunate than themselves after they pass away, particularly if their family are adequately provided for or if they have no close family. Whilst some still like the idea of supporting major national charities, there are many who prefer to benefit more local causes or causes close to their heart, possibly where they have had a personal involvement or received support during their lifetime. of a personal injury or clinical negligence claim. A couple may set up a Trust to keep their family assets in the bloodline in case of changes in family and marital arrangements which may take the assets out of the family, or someone with a second family may set up a Trust to make special arrangements for their two families. A person with Charitable intentions may set up a Trust in their lifetime or on death for the benefit of those who they particularly wish to help in the future, and by doing so leave a lasting legacy: many of the charities we see now may have been set up in this Something that our team will discuss with way. These are all types of Trust. clients in this situation is the idea of setting up their own charitable trust which can continue to provide support for charitable causes of their choosing long after they have passed away. Creating your own charity means that your trustees can provide support to those who need help most. There can be a great sense of satisfaction in knowing that your trustees will carry out your wishes after you have gone and that Shacklocks LLP have been dealing with Trusts for many years, though not quite as far back as the Crusades! If you would like to know more about Trusts and how they may be of help in your circumstances contact Cassandra Worton or Richard Farmer at Shacklocks LLP on 01773 822333 or 01623 626141 or email cassandraw@shacklocks.co.uk or richardf@shacklocks.co.uk. your name will be associated with such good deeds even after you are no longer around. At Shacklocks we have set up a number of charitable trusts over the 150 years or so we have been in business and we still look after those trusts today. One of the charitable trusts we look after, for example, was established by a will in the 1940’s to provide accommodation for elderly residents. Cassandra Worton

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70 years later the trust is still providing that accommodation. Another of the trusts we look after was set up by a client who wanted to help people with particular medical conditions. Her kindness has enabled her trustees to provide financial support to a gifted young musician who has experienced a number of health issues that have interfered with her education, to enable that child to be educated in the most appropriate environment. A Charitable Trust can be set up either during your lifetime with savings and investments built up already, or alternatively through a specially prepared Will that will only take effect following your death and will therefore not deprive you of capital or income during your lifetime. Our team at Shacklocks have a particular speciality in preparing arrangements of this kind and also of acting as professional trustees to enable wishes to be fulfilled and instructions to be followed. If you are thinking of supporting charities through your Will or during your lifetime with a lump sum, why not talk to us about the different ways in which we can help you benefit those good causes, and how to make the most of the tax rules that enable a charitable cause to benefit. Call us at Shacklocks to talk about how we can help you to help your favourite local causes.

Telephone Shacklocks on 0845 602 2344 or email me at marionv@shacklocks.co.uk.

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