Your solicitor, a family adviser
Traditionally, solicitors provide legal and tax solutions to issues raised by the family regarding its estate: pre-nuptial agreements, gifts, wills, joint possession agreements, family-owned non-trading companies, inheritance settlements.
Solicitors are witnesses to the changes occurring both in family structures (decrease in the number of marriages, increase in the number of cohabitations and divorces) and in family assets (mobility, adaptation to the various stages of life, setting up mutual support mechanisms within the family, over-indebtedness). They respond to the new needs arising from these changes by proposing appropriate legal and tax solutions.
Solicitors do not restrict themselves to dealing, once they have occurred, with the financial consequences of family events such as divorce, death or a disabling accident. They also act as advisers who may be consulted by the family at any time in order to arrange for a transfer of assets or an estate restructuring, in accordance with current and future needs (accommodation, supplementary pension).
As family legal and financial advisers, solicitors are helping to prevent disputes and to restrict the recourse to legal proceedings.