Harold Stock & Co Solicitors have a specialist team dealing with personal injury trusts.
What is a personal injury trust?
If you are in receipt of means-tested benefits (housing benefit, tax credits, pension credits, etc) the value of any compensation that you receive as a consequence of a personal injury claim will be taken into account when calculating your benefits. By setting up a personal injury trust, the compensation will essentially be ignored in any benefits calculation meaning that you will not be disadvantaged by having received a compensation payment.
There are benefits in setting up a personal injury trust to those not currently in receipt of means-tested benefits as a way of preventing any future claim for benefits being affected by your compensation.
Compensation received following a personal injury claim can also be taken into consideration when looking at the cost of future or current care. A personal injury trust will prevent this.
At present, you and your partner can have £6,000 between you in bank accounts before any means-tested benefit is affected. If you have over £16,000 between you, your entitlement to means-tested benefits will be removed altogether. By setting up a person injury trust, your compensation payment is separated from your day to day accounts and not taken into consideration in any benefits calculation.
When setting up the personal injury trust, you will appoint trustees to manage the account. These are usually you and your spouse or a close family member or friend but can also be a Solicitor. The trustees hold the money on trust for the beneficiary (i.e. the person receiving the compensation). If funds are to be withdrawn from the trust, all trustees must agree.
In order to benefit from a personal injury trust, the trust must be set up within 52 weeks of you receiving the compensation payment but ideally as soon as possible.
Our specialist team can advise on whether a personal injury trust is right for you, assist you with the appointment of trustees , prepare the trust documentation and provide advice on how to run the trust.
For further information on personal injury trusts, please contact Claire Atkinson on 01457 835597 or ca@haroldstock.com
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