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In the recent Budget, the Government committed itself to a review of the operation of trust taxation in the UK. Since reforms were introduced in 2006 to counter what appear to have been little-used tax avoidance schemes, trusts have been used less often owing to their complexity and the perceived risk that their use may become subject to even more penal taxation. Offshore trusts, on the other hand, have been made subject to tighter rules in the Budget. Additional measures include extending from April 2019 the taxation of capital gains on...

Under English law, a person is able (within limits) to decide absolutely to whom their estate should pass. However, many countries have 'forced heirship' laws, under which a deceased person's estate must pass in specified proportions to a particular person or class of persons. One context in which this can be important, as shown by a recent Court of Appeal decision, is in the financial settlement between a divorcing couple. The couple who had split up are both joint nationals of the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia and both are extremely...

We have written on numerous occasions of the danger of either failing to leave a will or of not taking professional advice when making your will. Among the difficulties that can arise with DIY wills are challenges by family members who have been excluded from benefit, a failure by the person making the will to be sufficiently precise regarding the identities of beneficiaries – for example when leaving bequests to charities, or provisions that create unforeseen tax issues. Many more problems can occur and, in part, that is because of...

One of the advantages of placing your trust in solicitors is that they owe a lifelong duty to maintain the confidentiality of any information you give them. That point was underlined by a High Court case in which a solicitor was banned from taking instructions that could conflict with the interests of her former clients. The solicitor had, for about a year, worked as an in-house lawyer for a property company. During that period, she had access to confidential information concerning the company's assets and its financial and legal affairs....