The value of legacies has dropped slightly over the last year, and with the economy looking set for more turbulence, observers are expecting the downward trend to continue for years.

The Legacy Market Monitor, which pools the legacy results of 51 large charities, has found that the value of legacies to this sample dropped by 1.6 per cent in the year ending September 2011 on the previous year.

Driving this downward trend is a slight fall in the average value of residual legacies, which fell by 1 per cent to £51,300. Residual legacies, which involve people allocating ‘the remainder’ of their estate to a charity in their will, account for 85 per cent of total value of the legacy market. Pecuniary legacies – allocations of a fixed sum – have continued to rise in average value, to £3,600.

In reporting their quarterly findings, Legacy Foresight predicted that the market was unlikely to see a change in fortunes. “The depressed economic outlook suggests that recent trends in legacy income will continue,” the report states. “We do not foresee any meaningful growth in the overall legacy market for at least two years”.

The majority of the charities reporting as part of the Legacy Consortium reported individual falls in legacy income, while 21 saw income grow.