Lawyers for Declaration of Trust

Dan Chadwick
Dan Chadwick
1748941505
We recently sold and bought a new property, Anna B was our solicitor (both sale and purchase). Our chain was very long and there were several factors causing issues and delays. Anna and the team at the Cheadle branch, worked very hard to ensure the success of the chain. My husband and I are extremely grateful for all their hard work and support throughout the process - which at times was stressful! We would highly recommend.
Laura Anderson
Laura Anderson
1748536946
I can not speak highly enough of Anna Beavers at Mounteney, she helped us with our recent house sale and purchase, when I say helped, she guided us through it expertly, explaining things as went along, Anna was very professional but also down to earth and kept us up to date with progress. One thing that stood out for us was how responsive Anna was, ALWAYS getting in touch when she said she would, emailing back very promptly to enquiries, chased other conveyancers when needed, this was a huge positive for us and made the whole experience so much better than we thought. Thank you so much Anna!
radu muntean
radu muntean
1747855457
I have dealt with a number of solicitors during the last few years and I think that Mr. Ian McKenna is by far the best solicitor I've ever worked with.He is very efficient, he has an outstanding expertise, and he has a very high level of professionalism. All these qualities make him a great person to deal with.I really appreciate how he handled my property purchase from start to finish and I will definitely use his services again.
Hetal Knowlson
Hetal Knowlson
1747835491
Anna Beavers was our solicitor and she was excellent. Very responsive via email/call, gave good advice, navigated the challenges of sale/purchase well and managed to complete a purchase in 6 weeks! She went the extra mile to make sure we could complete so quickly. We were so glad we went with her, service was top class. Thank you Anna!
Eleanor Bowkis
Eleanor Bowkis
1747249570
Anna Beavers was our solicitor for sale and purchase. We cannot praise her enough. She was amazing throughout, extremely quick at responding to emails and kept us updated as much as possible.She ensured all funds were ready for our completion date and made everything effortless. We were completed and in our new home by 1pm! Incredible service from Mounteney and we will use them again in the future for sure.
Lucy Wiggins
Lucy Wiggins
1746529958
Very good communication- friendly, approachable staff- made the whole experience less stressful!
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Description

The basics of English and Welsh trust law is that ‘trustees’ hold something (e.g. land) for the benefit of someone else, called the “Beneficiaries” of the trust.

In English & Welsh law, land is always held by more than one person as joint legal tenants.

The rule of “Survivorship” applies to joint legal ownership – that is, the legal interest of each joint tenant is extinguished on their death, leaving the surviving joint tenants in charge of the whole of the remainder.

Because of the survivorship principle of legal ownership, whenever land is owned by more than one person who does not intend their co-owners to take their interest on their death (for a married couple, for example, survivorship is often precisely the mutual intention), then that land should always be held subject to a trust noted on the official title – be that trust to protect the owner’s individual interests as tenants in common in equal shares, tenants in common in unequal shares, or for more complicated trust interests such as arising in a trading partnership or similar ownership arrangements.

The interests of ownership of the land can have various implications, e.g. tax. This product is often procured by couples wishing to re-allocate rental income between them toward the member who pays the relatively lower rate of tax, i.e. to save tax, overall.

The product comprises drafting the simple terms of the property trust on which the property is held, and registering a note of that at HM Land Registry, to protect the beneficial interest.

‘Simple’, in this case, means that the Trustees and Beneficiaries are the same, and that the trust contains fixed shares that do not have any mathematical variations in time. We have a different (more costly) product for more sophisticated trusts, including any:

  • under which the relevant shares of Trustees / Beneficiaries may vary in time; or
  • where there may be differences between the class of trustees and the class of beneficiaries [and which trusts are therefore registrable with HMRC]

How long will it take?

We don’t generally do anything for new clients until our process of client retention has concluded – this involves agreeing the scope of what we are doing for the price (our terms are below), setting-up our client record, and producing the bill (payment in advance is required for all new clients).

After that, the production of the trust is a job that we can undertake in hours, once we can schedule it in our workflow, that can depend on how busy we are at any particular time. We would not usually take-on a job for which we could not engage within about a working week.

A completed trust will then need to be submitted to HM Land Registry for registration. The time HM Land Registry take to process such a registration varies greatly, depending on how busy they are. Some applications are processed very quickly, up to “next day”; however, most applications appear to languish awaiting HM Land Registry attention; in 2021 many applications were taking about 6 months to be registered – and some types of application can take even longer than that, unfortunately. However, once submitted HM Land Registry process applications on any title in order of submission – so their delay ought not to affect the priority of your application relative to other matters on that title.

Money Matters

Your supplier is SRA-regulated Mounteney Solicitors, that charges VAT some customers may be able to reclaim

We charge £350 + VAT = £420 + HMLR Fee (£20) = £440

There is more about our fees on our website here

If you have any questions, require any further information, or would like to engage us on the T&Cs linked Our Terms in the footer below, please don’t hesitate to Contact Us.