Means tested benefits and Discretionary Trusts

I live with my parents who are in their 80s. In 2010, they wrote a will and were advised by a solicitor to leave my inheritance in a discretionary trust. The solicitor told them that the trust could be used for anything I needed/wanted.

Since then, Universal Credit has been introduced with new rules and I was rather alarmed to read this on a legal website:

“Discretionary trusts were previously disregarded for the purposes of income-based benefits. However, this is no longer the case: these trusts are increasingly being treated as deprivation of capital.”

It seems that trusts now have to include specific terms if they are not going to affect means tested benefits.

I will be one of two trustees and will be the main beneficiary and I wonder if under the new rules, I may now not be allowed to be a trustee if I need to claim means tested benefits because I will have direct access to the money in the trust.

It is so difficult to find a solicitor who knows anything about this. Are you able to give us any concrete information ?

Renaissance legal. I have attended free webinars held by this lot. They seem to have knowledge in this area. renaissancelegal.co.uk