General Discretionary Will Trust

Here the Beneficiaries can be a wide range of people but the Testator wants the Trustees to decide who should benefit and when. There may be certain criteria with which a potential Beneficiary must comply before the Trustees can award him/her any benefit (e.g. coming off drugs).

There are no Inheritance Tax advantages to General Discretionary Will Trusts and a General Discretionary Trust set up on death is treated like any other bequest and may be subject to Inheritance Tax at 40%.

It is usual with General Discretionary Will Trusts for the Testator to write a Memorandum of Wishes to his Trustees outlining how they would like them to act. The Memorandum of wishes is not legally binding but serves as a guide as to how they should act.

General Discretionary Will Trusts and Memoranda of Wishes are used in Sharia Law compliant Wills.