How exposed is your estate?
Inheritance tax planning for estates over £1 million has changed shape. From April 2026, business and agricultural reliefs are capped, and from April 2027 pensions are due to come into the inheritance tax net. Families who were comfortably covered by reliefs a few years ago now face a 40% charge on wealth they assumed would pass intact.
The good news is that the planning tools still work: gifting, trusts, allowances used deliberately, and estates structured with the reliefs that remain. An independent adviser builds that plan around your family rather than around any product, and the introduction through us is free.
How an independent adviser helps with estate planning
Mapping the real exposure
The first step is an honest number: what the estate is worth across property, business interests, pensions and investments, which allowances and reliefs apply, and what the tax bill would be today. Most families have never seen this laid out.
Gifting with structure
Gifts made seven years before death usually fall out of the estate entirely, and taper relief can reduce the charge from year three. An adviser helps you decide what you can afford to give away without risking your own security, and documents it properly.
Responding to the 2026 and 2027 changes
The £1m cap on full business and agricultural relief, and pensions entering the estate from 2027, both reward early action. Restructuring ownership, reviewing wills, and rethinking which assets fund retirement and which pass on are all live decisions now.
Keeping the plan current
Estate planning is not a one-off exercise. Values move, rules change, and families grow. An ongoing advice relationship keeps the plan matched to the rules in force rather than the ones that applied when it was written.