Wills & Estate Structuring
for your estate

A will decides who inherits, but how the estate is structured decides how much tax is paid and how smoothly the assets actually pass. The two have to work together. A will that ignores the inheritance tax position, the form in which property is owned, and the way pensions and life policies are nominated can leave a perfectly clear set of wishes that still triggers an avoidable charge or fails to use the bands it could have used.

Estate structuring is the tax and ownership side of getting an estate in order: making sure the will leaves the home to direct descendants so the residence nil-rate band is available, that property is held in the right form, that beneficiary and pension nominations point where they should, and that the whole arrangement uses the spouse exemption and the transferable bands. We do not draft wills; that is the solicitor's role. The accountant models the tax and makes sure the structure supports it.

We handle estate structuring regularly and coordinate with your solicitor so the legal document and the tax plan are built as one. The person modelling your bands and reliefs does this work day to day and talks to the will drafter rather than handing you a number in isolation.

A will and the tax structure around it are two halves of one job. The will sets out who inherits and appoints executors and guardians; the structure determines how much tax the estate pays and which assets pass under the will at all. A great many estates run into trouble not because the will is unclear but because nobody checked how the will interacts with the inheritance tax bands, with the way property is owned, or with assets that pass outside the will entirely. The accountant's role is to model that interaction and feed it to the solicitor before the will is signed.

The residence nil-rate band is the clearest example of why structuring matters. The extra GBP 175,000 band is available only where a residence, or its value, passes to direct descendants such as children or grandchildren. A will that leaves the home to a sibling, a friend, or into the wrong kind of trust can forfeit the band entirely, costing up to GBP 70,000 in tax at the 40% rate for a single estate, and more across a couple. Getting the will to direct the right asset to the right class of beneficiary is a structuring decision that has to be made deliberately, not left to chance.

The spouse exemption and the transferable bands shape the order in which an estate should pass. Transfers between UK-domiciled spouses and civil partners are exempt, and the survivor inherits the unused proportion of the first death's nil-rate band and residence nil-rate band, which is how a couple shelters up to GBP 1,000,000. The practical structuring question is whether to leave everything to the survivor and rely on the transferable bands, or to make specific legacies on the first death. The transferable band has made the simple all-to-survivor approach the right answer for many couples where a nil-rate band will trust was once standard, but it depends on the assets and the family.

How assets are owned decides what the will can even control. Property held as joint tenants passes automatically to the surviving owner outside the will, which is usually the intended result for a married couple but can defeat the plans of unmarried partners or families trying to direct a share to children. Severing a joint tenancy into a tenancy in common lets each owner leave their share under their own will, which is a structuring step taken for specific reasons. The same logic applies to jointly held accounts and to assets held in companies or partnerships, where the governing documents may override the will.

Pensions and life policies frequently pass outside the will under their own nomination forms, and getting these right is part of structuring the estate. A death-in-service benefit or a pension lump sum usually follows the nomination held by the scheme, not the will, so an out-of-date nomination can send funds to an ex-spouse or omit a new family entirely. Life policies written in trust pass outside the estate and outside the will. From 6 April 2027 unused pension funds come within the scope of inheritance tax, which makes reviewing pension nominations and the overall drawdown plan a more pressing part of estate structuring than it has been.

Finally, the will should anticipate change. Marriage generally revokes an earlier will unless it was made in contemplation of that marriage; divorce affects gifts to a former spouse; new children, new property, and business interests all shift the structure. Old wills that predate the residence nil-rate band or the transferable nil-rate band are a particular concern, because what was careful planning a generation ago may now waste an allowance or complicate a claim. A structuring review is the moment to catch these, and the accountant and solicitor handle their respective halves together.

Wills written before the residence nil-rate band existed often contain a nil-rate band discretionary trust that was sensible at the time but can now be counterproductive. Such a trust can waste the transferable nil-rate band, and depending on its terms can complicate or defeat the residence nil-rate band claim because the home may not pass directly to descendants. These wills should be reviewed and, in many cases, simplified, with the accountant modelling the difference and the solicitor redrafting. Leaving an old structure in place on autopilot is one of the more expensive things an estate can do.

Unmarried partners do not have the spouse exemption or the transferable bands, which changes the structuring entirely. A surviving partner who is not a spouse or civil partner inherits without the exemption, so a transfer that would be tax-free between spouses is fully chargeable between partners. Joint ownership form, life policies written in trust, and lifetime planning all carry more weight in these cases, and the assumption that long-term partners are treated like spouses for tax is a costly and common error that a specialist corrects at the outset.

Business and farm assets in an estate interact with the will in ways that need joining up with succession planning. Leaving a trading business or a farm to the wrong beneficiary, or fragmenting it across several, can undermine the reliefs and force a sale, especially in light of the GBP 1,000,000 cap on 100% Business and Agricultural Relief from 6 April 2026. The will has to direct these assets in a way that preserves the relief and the viability of the business, which is where estate structuring overlaps with business succession and the two should be modelled together rather than separately.

Deeds of variation allow beneficiaries to redirect an inheritance within two years of death, and for inheritance tax purposes the variation can be treated as if the deceased had made it. This is a structuring tool that operates after death rather than before, used to correct an outdated will, to use a band that would otherwise be wasted, or to redirect to the next generation. It is not a substitute for planning during life, and it depends on the agreement of the affected beneficiaries, but a specialist will flag it where an estate is being administered under a will that no longer fits the family's position.