Older Clients - Their Assets & How to Protect Them

Introduction

As our aging population grows, understanding the nuances of advising and acting for older or vulnerable clients has never been more important.

This new full day course will cover essential topics with practical tips to protect your clients and their wishes and navigate the complexities that private client practitioners can face.

It is suitable for those with a working knowledge of wills, powers of attorney and estate planning.

What You Will Learn

This course will cover the following:

• Care and care fees:
• Understanding your client’s attitude towards care
• Funding care
• Deliberate deprivation of assets
• Taking instructions:
• Identifying your client
• Understanding your client’s needs
• The importance of attendance notes
• Assessing what could go wrong and mitigating risks
• Agreeing timescales and understanding urgency
• Acting as a certificate provider for LPAs
• Your duty of confidentiality
• Capacity assessments:
• When to consider obtaining a capacity assessment
• Selecting an assessor
• Your letter of instruction
• The different tests for capacity
• Receiving the capacity report
• What to do if a client refuses a capacity assessment
• Estate planning in later life:
• Understanding your client’s goals
• Options for will structures
• Mitigating IHT
• Gifting:
• Who is making the gift?
• Authorising gifts made by attorneys
• Considering whether a gift is the most appropriate option
• The family home:
• Ownership of the family home
• Gifting all/part of the family home
• Equity releases
• Possible CGT issues
• The residence nil rate band
• The death of a spouse:
• Who will administer the estate?
• Deeds of Variation
• Options for Nil Rate Band Discretionary Trusts
• Considering what support your client may need
• Suspecting abuse:
• What to do when abuse is suspected
• Your duty of confidentiality
• Management of financial affairs:
• Acting as a professional attorney or deputy
• Identifying your client
• Acting in your client’s best interests