US Trust - in the estate?

Hello all

I wonder if anyone can help. I am dealing with an estate for gentleman who died domiciled in England. He was a principle beneficiary of a trust in US, settled by his grandmother. We have limited information about the trust at present (no trust document or settlor information), but on the face of it it looks like a life interest type trust, with the capital now passing to the deceased’s children absolutely. For tax purposes, can anyone tell me if the US trust is treated in the same way as an English life interest trust, i.e. the capital is deemed to belong to deceased, or can we treat the trust as falling outside of the estate? I suspect we may need more information but it would be useful to have an idea in order to ask the right questions to get any missing info.

Many thanks

Melissa Ritchie
Downs Solicitors

It could be excluded property under s.48(3) if the grandmother was non-dom (and non-deemed dom) and the assets were outside the UK.

Andrew Goodman
Osborne Clarke LLP