Trusts are where most will writers stall. They needn't.
Property protection, life interest and discretionary trusts, drafted through the same guided flow as everything else — so widening what you offer doesn't mean learning a second system.
Willo drafts property protection, life interest and discretionary trusts through the same guided workflow as wills and LPAs — as testamentary trusts inside a will, or as standalone lifetime settlements. Included in the £150 monthly price, with no separate trust module and no per-document charge.
Why this is the wall most practices hit#
Almost every will writer reaches a point where the next step is trusts, and almost every one of them stalls there for the same two reasons. The drafting feels risky, and the software makes it expensive.
The second problem is easier to describe. Trust drafting is routinely sold as a paid add-on in this market — Arken list Trust Referencer at £40 + VAT a month on top of a document pack — which means the moment you start offering the work that pays best, your software bill goes up. It is a strange way to price something, and it quietly discourages practitioners from widening what they offer.
We include it. If you draft one trust a year or forty, the price is £150.
What Willo drafts#
| Trust | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Property protection trust | Protecting a share of the family home so it passes to children after the survivor's death |
| Life interest trust | Letting a surviving spouse live in the property or take the income for life, with the capital going elsewhere afterwards |
| Discretionary trust | Trustees decide who benefits and when — used for vulnerable beneficiaries, blended families and flexibility |
| Severance of joint tenancy | The notice and Land Registry paperwork that most property trusts depend on |
Definitions, in plain English, are in the glossary: property protection trust, life interest trust, discretionary trust, severance of joint tenancy.
How the drafting works#
Same flow as everything else. You are not opening a different product with a different logic. The trust questions sit inside the will flow at the point the conversation naturally reaches them.
The interactions are checked. The most dangerous trust errors are not in the trust — they are in how it meets the rest of the will. A property gifted into trust and then included again in the residue. A life tenant who is also a residuary beneficiary in a way that defeats the point. Trustees appointed who are also the sole beneficiaries. Validation catches these before the document leaves you.
The severance comes with it. A property protection trust without a registered severance is a trust over an asset that passed by survivorship an hour after death. Willo drafts the notice alongside.
We maintain it. When the law moves, we move the clauses.
What we will not claim#
Willo will not tell you whether a trust is the right answer. It will not calculate the periodic charge, model the residence nil rate band interaction, or warn you that a discretionary trust is overkill for a £180,000 estate. Those are professional judgements and any software promising otherwise is selling you something it cannot deliver.
What we will do is make sure that once you have made the judgement, producing the instrument is not the hard part — and point you at free training run by people who draft these for a living.
Related#
Will drafting · LPA drafting · Estate planning software · Pricing
Questions about trusts.
Which trusts does Willo draft?
Property protection trusts, life interest trusts and discretionary trusts, both as testamentary trusts inside a will and as standalone lifetime settlements. Severance of joint tenancy, which most property trusts depend on, is drafted alongside them.
Is trust drafting an extra module?
No. It is included in the £150 monthly price. This is a genuine difference — Arken sells Trust Referencer as a separate £40 + VAT add-on, and modular pricing is normal across this market.
Does the software give tax advice?
No, and be wary of anything that claims to. Willo drafts the instrument. The periodic and exit charge position, the residence nil rate band interaction and whether a trust is the right answer at all remain your professional judgement. Project Will run free training on exactly this if you want grounding in it.
I have never drafted a trust. Can I start?
The software will not make you competent, and we are not going to suggest it will. What it does is remove the mechanical barrier — the clause selection, the interaction between the trust and the residue, the severance paperwork. Combine it with the free training and a second pair of eyes on your first few, which Project Will provide, and it is a realistic step rather than a leap.
See it draft one of your cases.
Book a walkthrough with someone who drafts in Willo every day. They will open your kind of case, not a demo script, and you can stop them and ask anything.
Or call 0333 049 5033 — Mon–Fri, 9am–6pm.