"Equity Release - securing additional income and/or cash out of the value of your home". Clearly, this only applies to UK residences and ones that are in some kind of occupation (there may be issues with tenancies, if you are renting out while living abroad, but we can look into this for you). This option of additional Capital and/or Income is proving to be a God-send to many who have seen such a decline in investment income, over recent years. It's also a useful facility if your beneficiaries are likely to be liable to Inheritance Tax Charges.

Members are probably aware that there were some difficulties with these plans in the 1970's and 1980's, but we are only advising that you stick with SHIP plans (Safe Home Income Plans) which guarantee that your Estate will never owe more than the value of your home and guarantee your lifelong security there, so long as you need it.

These services are now being offered by authorised and practising members of the Beneficial Trust Company to the CAFF UK Membership at large discounts to what is normally available in the High Street. In addition, the company will pay 10% of their charge into the CAFF UK Bank Account! This will not amount to much of course, on an individual basis but, together with the lower initial cost, it certainly makes it worthwhile for the Federation, as Members begin to use these services.

It is estimated that there are c. 28 million people in the UK alone, who have not written their Will and few realise that it is the Government coffers which benefit most, from this oversight (a recent example was a family known to me who lost over £200,000 like this!). Don’t let this happen to your family!

Many of us also have Life Assurances which will have to go through Probate before our families can get their hands on any cash, worst of all, when they do many lose 40% of the value through Inheritance Tax charges. Don’t let this happen to your family! Do investigate the value of Trusts too which ensure that all your hard earned cash and valuables stay outside any Inheritance Tax assessment.

How many valuable documents do you have in a drawer at the back of a cupboard, or in the spare bedroom? I didn’t think about this until a chap had a severe fire which totally destroyed his house recently. Apart from qualification papers and passports etc, I realised that I had the Title Deeds to two properties, a large number of valuable Share Certificates, four Life Assurance Documents and Health Assurance Documents. I’ll not tell you what they are worth, but I was astonished to realise what was just waiting to go up in smoke – apart from what the local burglars would make out of them!!

Just check this out for yourself, and see whether or not you would be in any kind of a mess, if similar documents went missing from your back bedroom! We all need Safe Document Storage.

If you are over 60 and, yes, many of us are, you also need to consider the value of appointing an Enduring Power of Attorney normally a close, younger relative. I cannot emphasise the value of this too much, since I have direct experience with my own parents. The Enduring Power of Attorney was written some ten years ago, and nothing happened after that because, at the age of 78, my parents were quite well, active and fit. However, by the time they were 87/88, they suddenly found themselves in residential care and, quite frankly, Dad had given up bothering with his post, pension, bank accounts etc. Consequently, he asked me to take over, and that’s all it took for the Enduring Power of Attorney to be brought into action. I was still writing cheques to pay his bills way after he knew what time of day it was – it was so easy for me, especially as I already had a very busy life, and needed things to be as simple as possible. The alternative is to claim authority from the Court, and that process is very complicated, long-winded and expensive, having to seek individual authority almost any time that you want to spend the smallest amount of money from the account.

And do think about appointing Executors to your Will. Again your beneficiaries and your family will thank you for this, too – I just checked my Will and discovered that both my Executors died some time ago!

Now you probably think that all this is too much to take in, and that it probably won’t matter to you – I can assure you of two things:

1. Although I consider myself very organised, I discovered how easily this process was, once in the hands of the professionals and I discovered that I had overlooked at least three of the items mentioned above

2. Yes, you’re right, it might not matter to you, but I can guarantee that it will CERTAINLY matter to the family that you leave behind!