A will to transfer funds & guardianship to the UK
Dec 16th 2010, 10:32 pm
#1
Forum Regular
Thread Starter
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 168
A will to transfer funds & guardianship to the UK
Ok, so I'm a Brit PR, wife's a USC, and our two month old son is a USC and hopefully in the next month or two will be dual. We live in LA.
This is our first child, and so we're looking into getting wills made up. Our plan, should we meet with a grizzly end, is that our son goes to my parents, who are both Brit (not USC’s or PR/GC’s) living in the UK. We have fairly significant life insurance, which, in the event of our untimely passing, we'd want to pass to my parents control for use in raising our child.
I guess we're basically talking about the transfer of fairly significant funds from the US to my parents control in the UK.
I'm a fish out of water on all this stuff; wills, trust funds/transfers, guardianship - just thought I'd ask if anyone out there had been through this process already and had recommendations on how to proceed? A recommended attorney or type of attorney that might be better suited for handling these types of transactions involving an international element. Ways to better accommodate the transfer to reduce the timeline/hassle/tax/etc.
Anyhow, anything about any of it that anyone might deem helpful – it’d be more information than I have now!
Thanks!!
-Matt
This is our first child, and so we're looking into getting wills made up. Our plan, should we meet with a grizzly end, is that our son goes to my parents, who are both Brit (not USC’s or PR/GC’s) living in the UK. We have fairly significant life insurance, which, in the event of our untimely passing, we'd want to pass to my parents control for use in raising our child.
I guess we're basically talking about the transfer of fairly significant funds from the US to my parents control in the UK.
I'm a fish out of water on all this stuff; wills, trust funds/transfers, guardianship - just thought I'd ask if anyone out there had been through this process already and had recommendations on how to proceed? A recommended attorney or type of attorney that might be better suited for handling these types of transactions involving an international element. Ways to better accommodate the transfer to reduce the timeline/hassle/tax/etc.
Anyhow, anything about any of it that anyone might deem helpful – it’d be more information than I have now!
Thanks!!
-Matt
Dec 16th 2010, 11:38 pm
#2
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Mar 2008
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
Posts: 4,913
Re: A will to transfer funds & guardianship to the UK
You need to talk to an attorney about this.
The financial stuff is pretty straightforward - you both make wills and you name appropriate beneficiaries and contingent beneficiaries for your life insurance etc. Depending on the size of your estate you may also want to look at ways of minimizing the tax liabilities but the mere fact that the beneficiaries may be in the UK isn't going to make a lot of difference.
Your son is a little more tricky - children are not property so you can't "leave" them to someone, but if you clearly express your wishes the courts will normally give a great deal of weight to that provided that it appears to be in the best interests of the child or children.
The financial stuff is pretty straightforward - you both make wills and you name appropriate beneficiaries and contingent beneficiaries for your life insurance etc. Depending on the size of your estate you may also want to look at ways of minimizing the tax liabilities but the mere fact that the beneficiaries may be in the UK isn't going to make a lot of difference.
Your son is a little more tricky - children are not property so you can't "leave" them to someone, but if you clearly express your wishes the courts will normally give a great deal of weight to that provided that it appears to be in the best interests of the child or children.
