Unconstituted NRB Discretionary Trust

I am dealing with an estate where H died less than 2 years ago leaving a NRB discretionary trust in his Will, residue to W. The IHT 205 recorded that his £325k NRB was used up. W died before the trust could be constituted and I am now dealing with her estate whereby residue passes to their adult children. Assets mostly consisted of their unregistered property.

From what I can see, my options are either of the following:-

  1. I can either appoint the trust funds outright to the children by Deed and record on the IHT 404 that the marital home is now partially jointly held by the deceased and the children (would HMRC be happy with this approach and do I need some other evidence of this e.g a Declaration of Trust?) or;

  2. I can file a correction of H’s IHT 205 (can you correct an IHT 205?) recording that everything passed to spouse instead.

How would members deal with this?

Thanks for your help.

Claire Carr
Rexton Law LLP

I don’t think the second option is open to you in the circumstances because the trust fund was not appointed to the widow during her life and an appointment cannot be made to someone after they have died.

Paul Davies
Clarke Willmott