Hi rossmc.

If the house is gifted to you while you are in your Trust Deed then it is an asset that your Trustee will have an interest in. It might not be able to be sold or remortgaged while they are alive, but that does not mean it would just be ignored.

Did you mention your Trust Deed to the lawyer that handled it or to your parents? If not I would suggest you speak to them about putting off this arrangement being put into place until after your Trust Deed ends.

Hi thanks for getting back to me.

The gift of the house is already going through. So I can’t stop it till after the trust deed.
I’ve only just thought that this could affect my trust deed.

What does happen once I have the house? What can the trustee do

When you signed your Trust Deed you promised that any windfall or asset that comes into your possession over the next 4 years would be made available to your Trustee in order that it can be used to pay towards your debts. So the transfer of title of your parents' home into partly your name would fall under this.

In practical terms, if there is some kind of liferent situation which means the property cannot be sold/remortgaged currently then it may be very difficult for the Trustee to do anything about it just now. However, I would strongly recommend you seek advice from a solicitor regarding this.

I'd say these are the potential routes forward:

1) The Trustee waits until your parents move out or both die and then seeks to sell the property in order to realise your half share

2) The Trustee decides they do not want to stay in office for potentially many years in order to be able to go after the house, so they write to creditors to explain the situation and seek their agreement that the Trustee can just abandon any further interest in the property

3) The Trustee looks to cut a deal with you, whereby they agree to release any further interest in the property in exchange for some kind of lump-sum payment from a third party (eg friend/relative)

I would imagine option 3 would be preferable to your trustee, as long as funds are available from somewhere, even if the sum being offered is much less than your half share of the property is worth. The Trustee isn't likely to want to be tied down waiting for many years to deal with it and it would be much easier to justify some kind of agreement to creditors than proposing to just walk away from the asset altogether.