Wealth, Health and Inheritance Briefing

August 2022 edition

To begin this issue, I would like briefly to celebrate our flourishing Private Capital team that due to an increase in workflow has increased in size by 40% over the last decade. We introduced our first Private Capital team in our Manchester office in 2018 led by partner Paul Davies, and we are very proud to report that the team has recently been given a band 2 rating in the prestigious Chambers and Partners’ directory.

Other areas of growth include our Bristol Probate team headed by new partner Samantha Neagle. This is now a busy team of eight fee earners while new joiners over the last few years in our lifetime planning team in Bristol include Senior Associate Jacqui Lazare and Associates Tom Bradfield and Georgia Collier.

The Trust and Tax team in Bristol meanwhile has benefitted from the addition of Manjit Kaur while the Taunton team has recently welcomed Tax Senior Stephanie Haworth.

We anticipate some busy years ahead fuelled by the long standing freeze of the inheritance nil rate band bringing more people into the charge to IHT, the aging demographic profile of the UK, ever increasing trust regulation and the increase of dementia among the older population. We look forward to these challenges and to navigating our clients and introducers through them. Please get in touch if we can help in any way.

Meanwhile in this issue:

• The Covid pandemic may lead to more non-resident individuals claiming the “exceptional circumstances” exemption under the Statutory Residence Test. We look at what we can learn from the first judicial consideration of this exemption.
• Gifts to charity have risen recently and we set out how to give to charity by Will in the most tax efficient way.
• Divorce law has been through its biggest change in many years. We examine what has changed and when professional legal advice is vital.
• Finally, we look back at one of our recent webinars on the Pitfalls of Probate.

We hope you enjoy the rest of the summer. The next edition of WHIB will be published in the autumn, but in the meantime any feedback is always appreciated.

Anthony Fairweather

In this edition

The Statutory Residence Test and “exceptional circumstances”

The number of days that the taxpayer spends in the UK is vital in determining tax residence pursuant to the Statutory Residence Test (SRT) with a variable number being permitted as decided by various factors. Read more

Giving to charity by Will

It has been reported that legacies left to charities in Wills increased 11% last year. The reasons behind this are probably numerous but undoubtedly the pandemic highlighted the value of charitable work in extraordinary times. Read more

No-fault divorce online – what your clients need to know

It has recently been reported that, perhaps unsurprisingly, there has been a rise in the number of divorce applications filed since “no-fault” divorce came into force on 6 April 2022. Read more

Pitfalls in probate

Pitfalls in Probate was the subject discussed in a recent episode of our webinar series for intermediaries. Paul Davies, Rebecca Clarke and Geraldine Stephens, spoke about some of the problems that can arise when administering an estate. Read more