Key Facts
- A property protection trust protects your share of the family home for your chosen beneficiaries, usually your children, while letting your surviving partner carry on living there.
- It works where a couple own their home as tenants in common, so each owns a distinct share to leave in trust rather than outright to the survivor.
- Your share is ring-fenced for your children whatever happens to your partner later, including remarriage or a change to their own Will.
- It protects your children’s inheritance; it does not let you avoid your own care home fees.
- Aggressive schemes promising to shield a home from care fees are usually lifetime trusts and carry real risks.
A property protection trust does one job well: it protects your share of the family home for the people you want to inherit it, usually your children, without turning your surviving partner out of their home. It is one of the most practical trusts a couple can put in their Wills, and one of the most misunderstood, because it is often confused with schemes that promise something the law does not allow.
This article explains what a property protection trust actually does, how it works, and the honest position on what it can and cannot protect against.
What Is a Property Protection Trust?
A property protection trust is a trust in your Will that holds your share of the family home. Instead of leaving that share outright to your partner, you leave it in trust. Your partner keeps the right to live in the home for as long as they need, and when that comes to an end, your share passes to your children, exactly as you intended.
It only works where you and your partner own the home as tenants in common. That means each of you owns a distinct share, and each of you can decide separately what happens to your own share. If you own as joint tenants instead, the home passes automatically to the survivor and there is no separate share to protect, so severing the joint tenancy is usually the first step.
How a Property Protection Trust Works
Say you and your partner own your home equally as tenants in common. Each of you writes a Will leaving your own half share into a property protection trust. When the first of you dies, that half is held in trust. Your surviving partner has the right to live in the home for the rest of their life, or for as long as they need it, so nothing changes for them day to day.
Because your half is held in trust rather than owned by your partner, it is ring-fenced. If your partner later remarries, changes their own Will, or falls into financial difficulty, your half is protected and still passes to your children in the end. Your partner keeps their security; your children keep their inheritance.
What It Protects Against, and What It Does Not
Used properly, a property protection trust protects your share of the home from the things that quietly disinherit children: a survivor remarrying, a survivor’s later Will leaving everything elsewhere, or your share being spent or lost after you have gone. That is a real and valuable protection.
What it does not do is let you avoid your own care home fees. A trust in your Will does not exist until you have died, so it cannot protect your own assets from your own care assessment during your lifetime. The trusts marketed as a way to shield your home from care fees are almost always lifetime trusts, set up while you are still alive, and deliberately moving assets out of reach to reduce a care assessment can be treated as deliberate deprivation of assets. If someone offers you a property trust primarily as a care-fee dodge, that is a reason to be cautious, not reassured.
The rules on care funding and trusts change over time and depend on your circumstances. Always take current, tailored advice before relying on any of this.
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Is a Property Protection Trust Right for You?
It fits couples who own their home as tenants in common and want to be sure their own share reaches their children, particularly in a second marriage or blended family, or where there is any risk of a survivor’s circumstances changing after the first death. For many couples it is the single most useful trust they will ever put in place.
If you and your partner have the same children and no concern about what happens after one of you dies, you may not need it at all. A free consultation is there to work out whether it fits, and to sort out the tenants in common arrangement if it does.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between joint tenants and tenants in common?
As joint tenants, you own the whole home together and it passes automatically to the survivor when one of you dies, so there is no separate share to leave in trust. As tenants in common, each of you owns a distinct share that you can leave as you choose. A property protection trust needs the home owned as tenants in common.
Can my partner still live in the house?
Yes. That is the point of the trust. Your surviving partner has the right to live in the home for the rest of their life, or for as long as they need it. Your share is only passed to your children once your partner no longer needs the home, so their security and your children’s inheritance are both protected.
Does a property protection trust avoid care home fees?
It should not be sold to you on that basis. It protects your share of the home for your children after you die; it does not protect your own assets from your own care fees, because the trust does not exist until you have died. Any scheme promising to shield your home from your own care costs deserves close, sceptical questioning.
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TL;DR: Property Protection Trust
A property protection trust ring-fences your share of the family home for your children while letting your surviving partner stay living there, which makes it one of the most practical trusts a couple can use.
- It holds your share of the home in trust rather than leaving it outright to your partner.
- It needs the home owned as tenants in common, so each of you has a distinct share.
- Your share is protected for your children whatever your partner does later.
- It protects your children’s inheritance; it does not avoid your own care home fees.
- Care-fee shelter schemes are usually lifetime trusts and carry deprivation of assets risk.