Gifts and Asset Transfers

A will deals with what you still own. It says nothing about the things that have already left your hands: the flat signed over to a child, the shares moved to a sibling, the money handed across at a wedding. Years later those gifts are often remembered differently by different people, and there may be nothing written down to settle it.

Your gift register is a running record of those transfers. Each entry captures what was given, to whom, when, and what you understood it to be worth at the time, together with whatever paperwork supports it. The register sits outside your will, so replacing or rewriting a will does not wipe the history.

Different situations call for different paperwork. These are the families of document the platform recognises. Whether any of them is needed in your case, and what form it must take, depends on the asset, the people involved and where they are.

• Deed of Gift

  Records that something was given away outright, with nothing expected in return. People commonly use one so that the gift is written down at the time rather than reconstructed later, and so that a gift is not mistaken for a loan. Requirements for signing and witnessing vary by jurisdiction.

• Deed of Variation

  In some jurisdictions, people who inherit from an estate may agree to redirect what they receive to someone else. Time limits, formalities and the effects of doing so differ substantially from place to place, and more than one person is usually affected. This is one to talk through with a qualified professional before acting.

• Assent

  The paperwork by which personal representatives pass an asset out of an estate to the person entitled to it. It is the step that turns an entitlement under a will into ownership in that person's own name.

• Declaration of Trust

  A declaration of trust records that something is held for someone else rather than for the holder. Shares and personal possessions are recorded as the asset a deed of gift or a declaration of trust deals with, not as a separate kind of document. What form is required, and who must be notified, depends on the asset and the jurisdiction.

• Property Transfers

  Moving land or a building generally involves a registry and its own prescribed forms and identity checks. We do not complete statutory registry forms or submit anything to a land registry; that work sits with a professional you appoint.

Where we hold a reviewed template for your jurisdiction, and the document is one we may lawfully prepare, you build it through our guided drafting and a verified professional reviews it before you rely on it. Where we do not, we say so plainly instead of producing something that looks right without being right, and we can refer you to a verified professional who prepares it for you. Their fee is set and quoted by them, separately from ours.

Which of the two applies to you is worked out from where you are and which document you need, and it is shown to you when you start rather than promised in advance. You can search for a professional by the "Lifetime Gifts and Transfers" practice area in our professional directory.

• We Do Not Perform the Transfer

  We produce the paperwork and the instructions that go with it. The registry, bank, company registrar or transfer agent that holds the asset performs the transfer, and their own requirements apply on top of the document.

• We Do Not Work Out Tax

  Giving something away can have tax consequences. Those rules vary by jurisdiction, depend on your wider circumstances and change over time, so we do not calculate them or estimate them for you. Speak to a qualified tax adviser about your own position.

• We Do Not Advise You Which to Use

  Whether a deed of gift, a variation or a declaration of trust suits your circumstances is a question for a qualified professional who knows your situation, not something this platform decides for you.

If a deed or transfer document was drawn up and signed somewhere else, you can store it against the relevant gift exactly as it is. It is kept as the signed document it already is: nothing is read out of it and recreated, and nothing about the document changes. That keeps the evidence with the record instead of in a separate folder.

• Do I need a will to keep a gift register?

  No. The register works on its own. If you listed earlier gifts while making a will on the platform, those gifts are carried into the register and the people who received them can be matched to the people your will already names, so both records point at the same person.

• Does recording a gift make it legally effective?

  No. Recording a gift is a record-keeping step. Whether a gift took effect depends on what was actually done at the time and on the law where the asset and the people are. Where a document is needed to complete a transfer, the register is where you keep it, not a substitute for it.

• Can I record a gift I made many years ago?

  Yes. Older gifts are often the ones most worth writing down, because the detail fades. Record what you know and attach whatever supporting material you still have; an incomplete entry is more useful than none.

• Who can see my gift register?

  It is private to your account, in the same way as the rest of your estate records. Anything you share is shared because you chose to share it.

• Where can I read more about the product itself?

  The gifts and asset transfers page explains what the register and the transfer documents cover, and you can start your own register from there.