Charities and Your Will

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Christmas is seen as a time for giving so if you are thinking of making or updating an existing Will, have you considered leaving money to charity?

The Charity Commission has revealed that 35,000 people in England, Scotland and Wales who died in 2014 made donations in their Wills, benefiting more than 2,200 charities. Whilst this may seem like a large amount, more than 550,000 deaths were registered in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014. Working on these figures, it would therefore appear that roughly fewer than one in ten people leave money to charity when they die.

If you leave something to charity in your will, then it will not count towards the value of your estate. Furthermore, if you leave at least 10% of your net estate after any exemptions have been taken into account to charity, this cuts the rate of any Inheritance Tax you pay from 40% to 36%.

For more information, please contact our Private Client department for expert and friendly advice.

Christmas Card Cheque Presented To Addenbrookes Hospital

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Shoshana Goldhill Presents Cheque To Addenbrookes Charitable Trust

Shoshana Goldhill Presents Cheque To Addenbrookes Charitable Trust

Shoshana Goldhill, partner and head of the family department this week attended Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge and donated a cheque to Addenbrookes Charitable Trust (Breast Cancer) on behalf of all the partners. 

Each year the firm chooses to donate to local charities in lieu of sending corporate Christmas cards.  The donation was very well
received. 

Our other selected charities for Christmas 2015 are St Nicholas Hospice, Suffolk and Women’s Refuge, Cambridge.

Adams Harrison English Literature Award Presentation

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Jenny Carpenter was delighted to present the Adams Harrison Solicitors English Literature award on the evening of Tuesday 15thDecember at Samuel Ward School, Haverhill.  An evening packed full of talented students.

Hayley Ford Presents Cheque To St Nicholas Hospice in Haverhill

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Hayley Ford of our Wills and Probate team went along to St Nicholas Hospice in Haverhill on the 9th of December to present a cheque for £350.00 to Nick Duncan.

Adams Harrison do not send out Christmas Cards to clients or businesses and instead choose three different charities each year to benefit from the money that would have been spent.

This year the staff chose St Nicholas Hospice, Addenbrookes Charitable Trust (ACT) – Breast Cancer, and the Cambridge Women’s Refuge.

Adams Harrison Presents Cheque to St Nicholas Hospice in Haverhill

Hayley Ford presents cheque to Nick Duncan.

Criminal Court Charge Review

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Today the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Michael Gove has announced that the criminal court charge that was only imposed as recently as April this year will be abolished with effect from 24th December.  He stated:

“The courts take money from offenders in a number of ways, including fines, the victim surcharge, compensation orders, prosecution costs and the Criminal Courts Charge.

This array of penalties, fines and charges is complex and confusing. I have therefore asked my department to review the entire structure, and purpose, of court-ordered financial impositions for offenders, in order to bring greater simplicity and clarity to the system.”

He has requested a review of the system regarding financial penalties with the basic principle being that those who have broken the law should bear some of the costs of running the criminal courts.  He expressed concern that the Criminal Court Charge had not necessarily achieved this fairly.

Digital Assets And Your Will

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Most people are aware of the importance of making a Will to deal with physical assets. Relatively few of us, however, have probably considered what will become of our digital assets when we die.

What is a digital asset?

A digital asset is one that requires a password and username to access. For example, digitally-stored music collections, social networking sites, and online investment and banking accounts.

What to do?

It may be that dealing with your digital estate is as simple as updating your Will to include a digital assets clause. Thereafter, you should note down your passwords for safekeeping. If your Will is being held by Solicitors, it may be a sensible idea for you to provide them with a copy of this information that will be stored confidentially beside your Will. This is particularly useful if you have also appointed Solicitors as your executors.

Failure to plan for digital inheritance can cause problems as without usernames and passwords it can be very difficult for executors to access web domains, social networking sites and other online accounts. As the executors’ duty is to gather in and administer all of the assets of a deceased’s estate, it is important that they are armed with the necessary information to enable them to do so.

The challenge is therefore  to keep the information up-to-date and hidden yet accessible when the time comes.  It is important to remember that you should not include details of your web-based accounts, passwords and user names in your Will. This is because a Will, once proved, becomes a document of public record and therefore potentially accessible by fraudsters.

For more information, please contact us for expert and friendly advice.

Happy Birthday Sue

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Sue Lawton Practice Manager Adams Harrison

Sue Lawton Practice Manager Adams Harrison

Our Practice Manager Sue Lawton got a surprise on arrival at work – her office had been decorated by the Sawston office staff with banners, balloons and streamers for her birthday, and is pictured with some of the lovely gifts she received.

Adams Harrison Triathlon – October 2015

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Adams Harrison sponsored the Haverhill Triathlon this year in aid of the Haverhill Scouts and Guides, and so we entered three teams for the Sprint+ Relay.

We met up outside the Leisure Centre on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning, the 4th of October, all a little nervous as none of us have ever done a triathlon before.  Our teams had to do a  600m swim, 45km cycle and a 10k run.   The teams were made up as follows:-

Tri Hards:-

Swimming – Hayley Ford

Cycling – Andy Dedman

Running – Gillian Gilligan

Giving it a Tri:-

Swimming – Tom Pitts

Cycling – Alison Helbert

Running – Simon Gilligan

Tri-Angels:-

Swimming – Lois Revill

Cycling – Sharon Dyster

Running – Rebecca Dedman

All our athletes did extremely well and said that they enjoyed the day (and have even said that they will do it again next year)!  The final results of our three teams were:-

1st place – Tri-Hards with a finishing time of 2:46:15

2nd place – Giving it a Tri with a finishing time of 3:01:25

3rd place – Tri-Angels with a finishing time of 3:20:47.

We met up afterwards in the Drabbit Smock for a well deserved drink where Rhodri Rees (our senior Partner) presented a trophy to the winning team.

Congratulations to all our teams, you did an amazing job!

HMRC Cash Seizure

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The Finance Bill currently in Parliament will authorise HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) with the right to seize money directly from the bank accounts of taxpayers who have failed to pay their taxes.

Under the rules, HMRC will be able to take money, but must leave the taxpayer with a minimum of £5,000 in their bank or building society accounts, and can only remove money from accounts containing a minimum £5,000. HMRC will be able to exercise ‘direct enforcement’ to collect tax debts of more than £1,000. It is estimated that this will generate about £100 million a year for the Treasury.

The changes do give the taxpayer the right to object to the County Court, although this may be of little use after the money has been seized.

Inheritance Scams

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Internet scammers are now scamming individuals into responding to emails about receiving unexpected inheritances. The emails claim to give the recipient the opportunity to claim ownerless properties and funds through the ‘Bona Vacantia Division.’

As a result of such scams, the Bona Vacantia Division (BV Division)  has recently issued a warning:-

‘Neither Government Legal Department (GLD) nor BV Division will ever issue emails making such offers. If you receive such an email, you should treat it with suspicion. We would recommend that you do not respond to any such offer, do not click on any links in the email and report it as spam to your internet service provider or to Action Fraud’.

If you do receive an email that you think might be a scam it is therefore important not to reply to the email.

For further information please call your nearest office for expert and professional advice.