advice on financial matters arising after death

A question about : advice on financial matters arising after death

Hello would greatly appreciate if anyone can advise on the following please.
my 48 year old aunt is sadly very ill and not expected to live more than a few more weeks, she has left me and my mum in charge of her affairs.

As it stands she has been given the highest level of early retirement which gave her a lump sum of around Ј30000
and filled in an expression of wish form that in the event of her dieing before her 75th birthday a payment of 10x her annual pension, less any pension already paid, be made to my mum. rather than her estate to avoid the 55% tax
This will be approximately Ј180000, there is no other monies or property involved.

she has made a will that states any money left in her accounts to be split between 10 family members at 10% each.
And that she wishes the death before retirement age payment by divided in the same way and my mum receives it purely as a custodian.

my question is as in theory the payment is discretionary and outside of my aunts estate, when my mum pays 90% of it to the family, would this be classed as her given, her own money away, and thus cause problems with the income linked benefits she receives.

Many thanks.

Best answers:

• *update*
  ok I have found out now that due to the total amount of her estate being under Ј375k inheritance tax is not applicable anyways so we need not of worried about that. but I cant find any solid information on the situation my mum will be in, is there special terms or would it be the same as if she won Ј180k on the lottery then gave it all away to family whilst claiming benefits.
• Since the estate is below the iht threshold, I see no reason why the Ј180k cant just be paid into the estate and shared out according to your Aunts wish's.
• The form was given to her to sign it over that way months ago, and won't be anyway of her signing anything anymore as she sleeps constantly. And her employer sent it off.
• A difficult one.
  If I understand you correctly, your aunt signed a death benefit nomination form in favour of your mother and sent it to her employers/pension trustees.
  However in her will she contradicted that and said your mother was to share it out. Big mistake alas
  Assuming the pension trustees act on the nomination then that clause in the will has no effect. The money is not your aunt's to give away by then - it's your mother's, and she can choose whether to or not - and yes it could affect her benefits whichever she does.
  Added to which the other beneficiaries could cut up rough if she doesn't share it.... damned either way
  A possible way out that might (and only might) work is if the pension trustees could be persuaded not to act on the nomination (it is at their discretion) but to pay the money into the estate. But (particularly if it's your mother that persuades them) that could still be construed as giving up assets.
  Definitely seek advice
• thanks for the reply's. yup that's pretty much correct dzug1, I Think her work told her as the payment is discretionary its not always paid unless the form was sent off. if they wont pay it to the estate, then aside from the possible benefit complications, she only gets CTC and CB anyway so it wont be much of a concern for how there affected. But is it ok to simple gift Ј18000 to each family member?