Estate Planning Solicitors

Good planning is key to ensuring the protection and smooth transition of assets and wealth from one generation to the next. Our private client solicitors specialise in the preparation of Wills, inheritance tax planning and the creation of trusts.

When you are thinking about your estate, it is often because you want to make things easier for the people you care about. You may be trying to protect children or grandchildren, provide for a partner, plan around a second family, or make sure a business or property passes in the right way. For many people, the hardest part is knowing where to start, and what really needs doing now.

Our role is to help you make clear decisions and put the right documents in place, without overcomplicating things. We will explain your options, highlight the points that matter most, and create arrangements that work in real life, not just on paper.

For some clients, that begins with a straightforward Will. For others, it involves more detailed planning, such as inheritance tax considerations, trusts (a legal way of holding assets for someone else’s benefit), or steps to protect family wealth where relationships or circumstances may change over time.

Estate planning often sits alongside wider questions too. You might want to choose guardians for young children, plan for a vulnerable beneficiary, or put Lasting Powers of Attorney in place so someone you trust can manage decisions if you ever cannot. Business owners may also need to think about succession and continuity at the same time as personal planning.
We will guide you at a pace that feels manageable, with a clear plan for what to do first and what can follow later. Where your situation touches other areas, we bring the right specialists together so the advice is joined up and you are not left coordinating different strands yourself.

Our private client work is supported by recognised standards and professional membership. The firm holds Lexcel, the Law Society’s practice management standard, and the team includes members of STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners), offering added reassurance that you are in safe hands.

We make it possible to put workable arrangements in place with clarity and control, so you can feel confident about what happens next.

We can help with:

Lasting Powers of Attorney

Private Wealth

Writing and Reviewing Wills

Our Wills, tax, trusts, probate and estate planning solicitors can help you with:

Writing and updating a Will, including complex Wills.
Work with you and your family to put an inheritance tax plan into place.
Prevent your family from paying unnecessary inheritance tax at the time of your death by making best use of trusts.
Reduce the risk of claims from people you do not want to benefit from your estate.
Help you to protect your financial and property assets.
Draft, set up and manage all types of trusts.
Look after children under 18 by setting up Wills and trusts.
Nominate guardians and make financial provision for children under 16.
Help children, spouses, ex-spouses and other dependents on death by bringing or defending family provision claims.
Protect elderly relatives and other vulnerable family members through the Court of Protection.
Appoint executors and trustees to look after your estate.
Deal with the administration of a large and complex estate.
Put a Lasting Power of Attorney in place to appoint someone to manage your financial affairs.
Put a Lasting Power of Attorney in place to appoint someone to look after your business.
Put a Lasting Power of Attorney in place to appoint someone to make decisions regarding your health and welfare.
Putting a Lasting Power of Attorney in place to appoint someone to look after your business.
Contest a Will where reasonable provision has not been made.

Frequently Asked Questions

Harrison Drury’s contentious Wills and probate solicitors can advise those looking to contest a will on the grounds that insufficient provision has been made for them, or those on the receiving end of a claim. Our expertise also includes challenging the validity of Wills in a range of other scenarios, such as loss of capacity, financial misfeasance, fraud and forgery. We can obtain freezing injunctions, and other types of urgent court relief. We also act for children and vulnerable adults where we have replaced executors and trustees acting unlawfully.

People will often want to give another person authority to make a decision on their behalf should they ever lose the mental capacity to make decisions for themselves. A power of attorney is a legal document allowing them to do so.

There are two distinct types of Lasting Power of Attorney, one for property and financial affairs and one for health and welfare. We prepare both types and act as certificate provider, as well as arranging the registration of a Lasting Powers of Attorney with the

Office of the Public Guardian. In exceptional circumstances Directors in the firm may act as attorneys for property and financial affairs.

The Court of Protection exists to safeguard vulnerable people who lack the mental capacity to make decisions for themselves. These decisions may relate to the person’s finances or their health and welfare.

At Harrison Drury, we act in matters that come before the court, including making statutory Wills on someone else’s behalf and making an application for a court-appointed deputy.

Harrison Drury has experience in advising high-net-worth individuals on the writing of complex Wills, particularly where trusts are used to mitigate inheritance tax.

Our complex Wills team also advises on the use of discretionary trusts where the person making the Will doesn’t want the beneficiaries to inherit immediately, perhaps where they are too young. We also advise on the use of trusts for other family situations, perhaps where there has been a second marriage and there are children from the first relationship, where assets are held in different jurisdictions, or with issues relating to the domicile status of the person making the will.

For wealthier people, a Will isn’t solely about ensuring the right people benefit from their estate when they die. Often there will be a range of other objectives, such as protecting their estate from having to pay for such things as local authority care home fees, divorce costs, or other unforeseen actions of beneficiaries.

All of these goals can be achieved by including carefully drafted trust provisions in the Will and arranging for the appointment of suitable people to hold the estate as trustees. As well as advising on the trust provisions, our expert lawyers can also assist with the general administration of trusts and with ten-year anniversary charges, tax returns and trust accounts.

Meet our Wills, Trusts & Probate team

Alexandra Brown

Apprentice Solicitor Wills, Trusts and Probate

t: 01772 374751

Estate Planning Solicitors

We can help with:

Our Wills, tax, trusts, probate and estate planning solicitors can help you with:

Frequently Asked Questions

Meet our Wills, Trusts & Probate team

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