What is a deed of variation?
A deed of variation lets beneficiaries redirect part or all of an inheritance to someone else after a death. If it is made within two years of the death and correctly worded, it is treated for inheritance tax purposes as though the deceased had made the gift themselves.
The main uses are practical: skipping a generation so that assets pass straight to grandchildren, equalising an unbalanced will, correcting an estate plan overtaken by events, or directing a slice to charity to bring the estate over the 10% threshold and secure the 36% reduced inheritance tax rate.
Only the beneficiary giving something up can vary their own entitlement, and every affected beneficiary must agree. It cannot be used to rewrite someone else's share, and it cannot be used where the person redirecting is a minor without court approval.
It is not a fix-all. Deprivation of assets rules for means-tested support are unaffected, and a variation made for value or outside the two-year window loses the tax treatment entirely.