Critically important for strategic development and budget setting, our legacy forecasts are now an integral feature of many charities’ annual planning and review process.
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Income projections are key to articulating and supporting your investment decisions
In our new Legacy Market Outlook 2020-2025 briefing report, we share our latest view of prospects for the UK legacy market.
In this pandemic year the total number of UK deaths could reach the highest level for more than 100 years. The administrative delays we’ve seen at probate since 2019 are ongoing, which in turn is impacting bequests notified to charities. Members of our Legacy Monitor benchmarking consortium received around 20% fewer bequests than expected between January and September 2020.
The spike in the number of deaths, combined with the probate delays, mean that charitable bequest numbers are likely to peak at record levels in 2021, between 37% and 50% higher than in 2020.
Jon Franklin, economist at Legacy Foresight, says, “The single biggest source of uncertainty for legacy incomes at the moment is not so much the impact of the pandemic but the impact of administrative delays at probate. If the backlog at probate is cleared, then we could see the demands on legacy administration teams peak at record levels next year, and charities need to plan for how they can respond to that at relatively short notice.
He continues: “Further ahead, the outlook remains positive, with growth in both income and bequests expected over the coming five years.”
We also assess the impact the pandemic is having on average residual bequest values, cash legacy income and the outlook for the coming five years in the Legacy Market Outlook 2020-2025 briefing report.
To download the report in full, click here.
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