The value of the legacy market has softened slightly as the impact of house price falls takes its toll on charity income.

Just over £981m worth of legacies was received by Legacy Monitor Consortium charities in the year leading up to March 2011 – down slightly on the 12 months up to the end of December 2010 when £991.6m was raised.

Legacy Foresight, which produces the quarterly update on the legacy income of its 51 members (which together receive more than half of the total legacy market), attributed the slight drop over the last three months to a decline in property values which hit last summer. Declining house values meant that average residual legacy values fell by £900 to £51,550 between the year ending December 2010 and the year ending March 2011.

But while the value of legacies has dropped, the number of bequests made has actually increased. This has not translated into increased value because the most growth has been in the increase in pecuniary legacies – where the legator specifies a specific amount to be left to charity – rather than residual legacies, in which charities receive the remainder of the estate once other beneficiaries have been cared for. 

The year-ending March 2011 figure is, however, is a slight improvement on the year ending March 2010, with the total value rising 0.8 per cent.