Areas of Practice
Track Record
Sue leads the strategic trust and tax planning advice for a large, high-profile, family property business. Recently, this advice has included a major review of the way in which the business is held through family trusts and a complex Variation of Trust Application designed partly to secure protection for the trustees of those trusts against potential personal liability in future. Other recent matters with which Sue has been involved include:
Reorganising two very large non-UK Will Trusts, originally set up offshore by a non-domiciliary and which own a trading group with subsidiaries in various countries together with a valuable portfolio of investments held through offshore structures
Giving strategic advice in relation to a complex probate where the assets include valuable chattels; liaising with a major auction house and a well known public institution about possible access to those chattels, with a view to a large conditional exemption claim; then negotiating the terms of that claim with HMRC; whilst also varying some of the main family trusts in order to prolong their life spans, for both asset protection and tax reasons
Advising a Spanish national, tax resident in Switzerland but who also lives partly in France and has assets held personally or in trust in both those countries and the UK, the US and several offshore jurisdictions, in relation to her Will, succession planning and wealth structuring, including the devolution of those assets
Advising the Family Office of another major trading Group in relation to the transfer of shares to the next generation and assisting individual owners to structure and implement their personal philanthropy initiatives
Awards & Rankings
Chambers HNW, Senior Statespeople, 2023
Chambers UK, Ranked Individual, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022 & 2023
Legal 500, Hall of Fame, 2020 & 2022, 2023
Legal Week Private Client Global Elite, Elite Lawyer, 2022
Spear’s Tax Lawyers Index, Top Recommended , 2022
Spear’s Wealth Management Awards, Shortlisted Lawyer of the Year, Tax & Trusts, 2021
Chambers HNW, Ranked Individual, 2017 – 2022
Recommended Tax Lawyer in the Spear’s Tax & Trust Index, 2021
Spear’s 500, Recommended Tax & Trusts Lawyers, 2019 – 2021
Legal Week Private Client Global Elite, Top 200, 2018, 2019 & 2021
Who’s Who Legal, Private Client – Listed Individual, 2018
Legal 500, Leading Individual, 2017 & 2018
Conference Speaking
Private Client Forum – Hero to Zero – How do the Mighty Fall?, 2019 – Co-speaker
Private Client Forum – Sudden Death: The Realities of Immediate Family Disruption, 2017
Private Client Forum, Villa d’Este 2014, 2016 – 2019
Publications
Tax Journal
Memberships
Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP)
Founder member of Professional Advisers to the International Art Market (PAIAM)
GAAR Committee 2013 – 2018
Education & Qualification
University of Oxford
Qualified as a solicitor in 1978
Recommended by Sue
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