Skip to main content

Inheriting/being left or given a home.

If your family owns their home and wants to leave it to a son or daughter with SENDs, it is very important that they take proper legal and financial advice.  This may be to set up a trust or other legal structure to make sure that their son or daughter  and their property are secure.

Alternatively, your family may want to buy you a home.  The same advice applies about getting suitable legal and financial advice.

Whatever your family wants to do, it is a good idea to discuss this as early as possible.   It can take some time to get the legal work done, and to look into the impact of this. For example,  trusts have to be managed by Trustees.   Trustees can be friends,  family members or lawyers, or a mixture of these.  It is a big responsibility to be a trustee and professionals will charge for their time.  You need to get trustees to agree to do the job, and consider how they will be able to do it.  Do they live close by?  Do they have other caring or work commitments?

Owning property can affect your eligibility for benefits, and it can cost a lot to maintain a home.   Will there need to be a fund set up to cover these costs, and who will run it?

The Money Advice Service can help with understanding this.  Your family will need to employ a suitably qualified lawyer (solicitor) to do the legal work and appoint trustees to run the trust.

Mencap have advice on wills and trusts.  Scope has some advice on the potential impact on benefits.

The GOV.UK website has  can help finding a legal advisor.  They have information about Trusts and Tax too.

The Law Society has lists of solicitors, so do the Solicitors Regulation Authority.