Legal insights: Family, assets, and the complexities of trust

Someone who finds it increasingly difficult to cope with life's day-to-day tasks may find the idea of a child carrying out these responsibilities on their behalf an attractive proposition. One way of doing this is to add the child as a joint owner of their bank account. However, doing so could have significant unintended consequences arising on the parent's death, both in terms of who inherits their estate and from a tax perspective. Assets held in joint names pass to the surviving joint owner automatically, rather than under the terms of the deceased's will. This is known as assets p...