How Much Does a Property Protection Trust Cost? (2026)

How much does a property protection trust cost?

A property protection trust costs £149 for one person or £249 for a couple with SimpleLPA. A solicitor or traditional will writer usually charges £1,500 to £3,000 plus VAT for the same kind of arrangement, and quotes across the wider market run from £500 to £4,000.

Here is the full picture.

• SimpleLPA charges a one-off fee of £149 for one person, or £249 for a couple. There is no subscription and no VAT, because we are not VAT registered.
• Solicitors and will writers typically charge £1,500 to £3,000 plus VAT.
• Some fixed-fee will-writing firms quote around £400 plus VAT for one person, or £550 plus VAT for a couple.
• Ongoing trustee administration, where it applies, costs roughly £200 to £600 a year. Most families can avoid it.

What is a property protection trust?

A property protection trust, also called a protective property trust, is an arrangement written into your will that sets out what happens to your share of your home after you die. It is designed so your share eventually reaches the people you have chosen, rather than passing without conditions to your surviving partner.

It does not put the house out of reach. It separates the ownership of your share from the right to live in the property.

To use one, you need to own your home in a particular way. Many married couples own their house as joint tenants, meaning you both own the whole of it. If one of you dies, it passes automatically to the survivor, whatever your will says. A trust cannot work on that footing.

So you change the ownership to tenants in common. That splits the property into distinct shares, usually fifty-fifty. You own your half, your partner owns theirs.

When you die, your half passes into the trust. Your surviving partner does not inherit it outright. Instead they receive a life interest: the right to carry on living in the property for the rest of their life, subject to the terms set out in your will. They have the use of the home. They do not own your capital.

When your partner dies, the life interest ends and your share goes to the people you named, usually your children. That is what stops your share being inherited by a new spouse if your partner remarries, a situation often called sideways disinheritance.

These trusts are available for property in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland operate under different rules.

One word of caution, and it matters more than anything else here. Many people look at these trusts because they are worried about care fees eating into their children’s inheritance. Deprivation of assets is a real risk here. If a local authority financial assessment concludes that avoiding care costs was a significant motivation for setting up the trust, it can disregard the trust and assess you as though you still owned the property outright. Avoiding care costs does not have to be your main reason for it to count against you. A property protection trust does not defeat a financial assessment, and you should never rely on one as a shield against care fees.

What do solicitors charge for a property protection trust?

Most solicitors and will writers quote between £1,500 and £3,000 plus VAT. Across the whole market, prices run from about £500 to £4,000.

It starts with a consultation. A solicitor maps out your family, values your estate, and asks the awkward questions that establish nobody is pressuring you into making the will.

Then they draft the wording. Trust clauses need to be precise, so the life interest is granted properly and the eventual beneficiaries are clearly identified.

They also handle the property paperwork. The trust needs you to own your home as tenants in common, so if you are joint tenants they will prepare the notice of severance and apply to HM Land Registry for the restriction that records it.

Finally they oversee the signing. A will is only valid if your signature is made or acknowledged in front of two witnesses who are both there at the same time. A solicitor often acts as one witness, with a colleague as the other.

Quotes climb towards £4,000 for a large city firm, an estate that needs real inheritance tax planning, several properties, or a complicated family history that takes hours to unpick.

Why do prices vary so widely?

The property protection trust cost varies because providers carry very different overheads and bill in very different ways.

High-street solicitors often charge by the hour. That rate covers office space, support staff, insurance and qualified salaries, and a senior partner costs far more per hour than a paralegal. Every call and email is time on the clock.

Other firms work to a fixed fee, estimating the average time the work takes and giving you one price up front. That protects you from a surprise bill, though it means the firm has to be disciplined about how long it spends on your file.

There is a common belief that a more expensive document gives you a stronger legal position. It does not. The property law governing these trusts in England and Wales is the same whichever route you take. HM Land Registry processes the same forms, and the Probate Service applies the same rules when you die.

What a premium buys is time and judgement: a regulated professional confirming this trust is the right tool for your particular problem. You are buying advice, not a different category of law.

Is there a cheaper way to set one up?

You do not have to pay high-street prices to put a trust in place.

Some fixed-fee firms quote around £400 plus VAT for one person and £550 plus VAT for a couple. These tend to be specialist will writers rather than full-service law firms, keeping costs down by sticking to estate planning documents and running consultations by phone.

SimpleLPA works differently again. We charge a one-off fee of £149 for one person, or £249 for a couple. There is no subscription.

We can price it that way because SimpleLPA is a legal technology provider, not a law firm. Our software generates your documents. The wills are designed to solicitor standards, and we give no legal advice.

You enter your details on the platform, set out your wishes and produce the paperwork, then download the documents and sign them correctly with your own witnesses.

Neither witness may be a beneficiary of the will, or the husband, wife or civil partner of a beneficiary. The will itself stays valid, but that person’s gift fails. This catches people out, because the obvious person to ask is often an adult child who is also inheriting.

We give you both documents you need for the ownership change: the notice that severs the joint tenancy, and the Land Registry form that records it. Serving the notice is what actually severs the tenancy. The form registers what you have done. You send both yourself.

Because we do not give tailored advice or process the paperwork for you, our costs stay low.

What ongoing costs should you expect?

For most people, setting the trust up is the only fee they pay in their lifetime.

A PPT will sits dormant while you are alive. It holds no money, it does not own your house, and there is nothing to manage or pay for.

The trust comes into existence on the day you die. Probate is the administrative step that lets your executors deal with your estate and pass your share to the trustees, and the title at HM Land Registry will need updating. That carries a cost of its own, whether your executors handle it or pay a professional, so budget for it alongside the setup fee. From then on, the trustees you named manage the trust.

Naming a professional as trustee sounds like the safe choice, and it is rarely the cheap one. A solicitor, accountant or bank will treat everything they do as chargeable work.

Ongoing trustee administration, where it applies, costs roughly £200 to £600 a year. That covers an annual review, correspondence with the partner living in the house, and basic paperwork. If the survivor moves out and the house is let, the trust generates income and a professional trustee will charge more to file its tax return. Over twenty years, that takes a real bite out of what you meant to leave your children.

You can avoid them by naming capable family members or friends instead. Unless your will specifically provides for payment, lay trustees do not charge for their time. They can claim reasonable out-of-pocket expenses, such as a Land Registry search fee or travel to a meeting.

Does a property protection trust need registering with HMRC?

Most trusts have to be recorded with HM Revenue and Customs. The requirement comes from anti-money laundering rules, and HMRC keeps a central database, the Trust Registration Service, showing who controls trust assets and who benefits.

A trust created by a will is excluded only if it is wound up within two years of the death, and a property protection trust is built to last far longer. A surviving partner may live in the property for ten, twenty or thirty years.

So your trustees will need to register, giving details of the person who created the trust, the trustees running it, and the beneficiaries who will eventually inherit. If the trust is still running two years after the death, the trustees must register within 90 days of that two-year point. HMRC does not issue automatic penalties for registering late. It writes to trustees first, and a £5,000 penalty is reserved for those who still do not register after repeated warnings.

Registering is free. HMRC does not charge to add a trust to the database or to issue the Unique Reference Number your trustees need.

The cost is your trustees’ time. If they would rather not work through the government portal, they can pay an accountant or solicitor to do it, at a fee agreed between them.

What does it cost for a couple rather than one person?

Couples usually need two complementary wills, so the property is protected whichever of you dies first. You each own a share as tenants in common, so you each need a will dealing with yours. These are called mirror wills.

Your will puts your half into trust for your children and gives your partner a life interest. Their will does the same in reverse.

Solicitors and will writers usually charge more for a couple, though the quote generally still sits inside the £1,500 to £3,000 bracket. A firm quoting £1,500 for one person might quote £2,000 for the two of you, because they are assessing you together and drafting very similar clauses twice. The fee is rarely double.

Fixed-fee will writers quote around £550 plus VAT for a couple. SimpleLPA charges £249. Whichever route you take, check the price you are comparing covers both of you.

When is a solicitor the right choice?

A solicitor is the right choice when your circumstances need someone to interpret them. SimpleLPA gives no legal advice, and our platform is not a substitute for it. Whether a trust suits your situation is a question for a solicitor. If things are complicated, £2,000 to a law firm is a sensible investment that can save your family a far more expensive dispute later.

Talk to a solicitor if you are in a blended family where relationships are strained. If you have children from an earlier relationship and expect friction with your current partner, a standard trust may not be enough, and a solicitor can draft specific terms covering repairs, downsizing and maintenance.

Do the same if your estate is above the inheritance tax thresholds, or if you own business assets, farmland or property abroad. Trusts and inheritance tax interact in complicated ways, and a specialist can structure things so you do not trigger an unexpected bill.

And if there is any doubt about your mental capacity to make a will, use a regulated firm. A solicitor will assess capacity against the legal test and record the meeting in writing, which is the best protection against a later challenge.

What else do people ask about property protection trusts?

Do I lose control of my home?

No. A PPT will only takes effect when you die. While you are alive the trust is dormant and you remain the owner. You can sell, remortgage or extend without asking your trustees for permission.

Can the surviving partner move house?

Usually, yes. Most property protection trusts, including ours, give the trustees power to sell the current home and buy another, with the trust’s interest attaching to the new property. If the new home costs less, the surplus can be held in the trust where the will allows. This power has to be written in, so check your own will.

What happens if the surviving partner goes into care?

The local authority carries out a financial assessment, looking at the survivor’s assets including their own half of the property. The deceased partner’s half is held in the trust for the beneficiaries, so it is generally not treated as the survivor’s capital. Deprivation of assets remains a real risk, though. You cannot use these arrangements where avoiding a financial assessment is a significant part of your motivation, and local authorities can investigate past property transfers.

Who should I choose as trustees?

Anyone aged 18 or over who is willing to take it on. Most people choose adult children, their surviving partner or trusted friends. You will normally want at least two, because the proceeds of a sale cannot be paid to a single trustee. If only one trustee is left when the house is sold, they can appoint a second at that point, but naming two from the start saves the extra step. It is perfectly normal, and perfectly legal, for your trustees to also be the people who eventually inherit.