by johnireland | Articles
Every year, profitable businesses close their doors not because they stopped making money, but because they ran out of it. It is one of the great paradoxes of running a company: the profit and loss account can show a healthy surplus while the bank balance tells a very...
by johnireland | Articles
Every few months on The Bookshelf, we pick up a book that has nothing to do with Wills, trusts or probate on the surface, and everything to do with them underneath. This month it is Shoe Dog, Phil Knight’s 2016 memoir of building Nike from a car boot importing...
by johnireland | Articles
Most people assume that once someone has died, their Will is fixed and final. In most cases that is true, and it should be — a properly drafted Will is meant to be the last word on how an estate is shared out. But UK law does allow for one important exception. Within...
by johnireland | Articles
Most people know that gifts can reduce an Inheritance Tax bill if you survive seven years. Far fewer know about an exemption that works immediately, with no waiting period at all, and no cap on the amount involved. It is called normal expenditure out of income, and it...
by johnireland | Estate Planning Essentials
This is the decision parents postpone longest. Fees and Executors get dealt with quickly; the question of who would raise the children if both parents could not is left open for years — which leaves it to be settled by other people at the worst possible moment. What...
