Make sure your home stays in the family
For most people, their home is the single biggest asset they own. A Property Protection Trust helps make sure it passes to the people you intend, even if life takes an unexpected turn.
- Protect your share of the home
- Guard against care fees
- Qualified, insured SWW members
The basics
What is a Property Protection Trust?
A Property Protection Trust, sometimes called a Property Trust, is most commonly used by couples who own their home together. It is set up through your Wills and works by splitting ownership into shares. On the first death, that person's share is placed into a trust rather than passing directly to the surviving partner.
Your surviving partner retains the right to live in the property for the rest of their life. When they later pass away, both shares pass to the beneficiaries you originally chose, such as your children. It allows you to provide for your partner during their lifetime while still protecting your share for the people you ultimately want to inherit it.
You may also see this described as a Life Interest Trust, since that's exactly what your partner receives, the right to live in the property for life while your share is protected for your children.
For the wider picture of how trusts work and when they help, see our overview of trusts.
Why people choose one
What a Property Protection Trust can do
A Property Protection Trust is particularly useful if you want to guard against some of the most common risks to your family home.
Protect against care fees
Ring-fencing your share of the property so it cannot be counted as part of your partner's assets if they later need long-term care.
Protect against remarriage
Ensuring that if your partner remarries after you die, your share still passes to your chosen beneficiaries, not a new spouse.
Provide for all children
Making sure children from a previous relationship are not unintentionally disinherited if your partner later changes their Will.
Prevent sideways disinheritance
Stopping your share of the property from being redirected away from your intended beneficiaries.
Is it right for you?
Who should consider a Property Protection Trust?
This type of trust tends to be most relevant if you are in a second marriage or relationship and have children from a previous one, want to balance providing for your partner with protecting your children's inheritance, are concerned about future care costs affecting what you leave behind, or simply want extra certainty over who ultimately inherits your home.
This is exactly the situation simple Mirror Wills often fail to protect against, since a surviving partner remains free to change their Will at any time.
Everyone's situation is different, and a Property Protection Trust is not the right solution for every family. We talk through your circumstances honestly and explain whether it makes sense for you, or whether another option may serve you better.
This kind of arrangement is often considered alongside care-cost planning, since a home can otherwise be included in the council's financial assessment for care fees. Age UK explains how that assessment works.
Some families consider simply gifting the property outright instead, but gifting your house and continuing to live in it creates its own tax trap, which is exactly why a Property Protection Trust is usually the cleaner route.
If you're specifically weighing up when your home is and isn't at risk from care costs, we've set out the full picture here.
Property values have grown enough in many areas that Inheritance Tax is now a real consideration alongside care planning, see our guide on Inheritance Tax advice for Winscombe families.
Setting a Property Protection Trust up also usually means changing how you own your home from joint tenants to tenants in common first, a straightforward step we handle alongside your Will.
Without protection, your home is at risk
Without a Property Protection Trust, common life events can redirect your share of the home away from the people you intended:
How it works
Setting up a Property Protection Trust
An honest conversation
We talk about your family, your property, and what you want to achieve.
Clear, tailored advice
We explain whether a PPT suits your circumstances, or whether another option is better.
Set up through your Will
The trust is written into your Will, along with the change of ownership at the Land Registry.
Questions, answered
Property Protection Trust FAQs
Keep exploring
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