Succession planning
Passing on wealth is a choice of great personal significance. We can help you manage this process and ensure tax planning is considered.
Succession planning is a careful balancing act. We can work with you to ensure that you not only preserve your wealth but that the right people and protections are established around it. Getting this right will provide you with clear direction and help to avoid conflicts and sensitively manage family relationships.
We know that there is much more to this than pure legal structuring. Each family is unique with its own priorities and ambitions. We will discuss your goals, and then take a multi-disciplinary approach, putting a structure in place which allows you to achieve them.
The UK tax regime also plays a key role. There are incentives to pass on assets during your lifetime. We will help you navigate the UK landscape to find the most practical solutions for you.
Finding the right structure for you
A number of solutions can be considered, including the use of trusts, Family Investment Companies, family businesses and Family Charters. Choosing the right structure enables you to pave the way for future generations. Giving you the control and flexibility to suit your changing needs.
Creation and management of trusts
We regularly advise on the creation and management of trusts. As a traditional vehicle for succession planning they have a number of advantages. They allow assets to be held for the benefit of future generations but with control retained by the trustees.
Family Investment Companies in succession planning
We are increasingly seeing the use of Family Investment Companies as a tool for succession planning. They provide a flexible way of retaining control of wealth within the first generation whilst passing value – tax efficiency – to the next generation. Different classes of share can be used to suit the particular needs of different members of the family.
Family Charter and letter of wishes
We can also help you plan succession through Family Charters and letters of wishes. Family Charters are statements of intent relating to the running of family businesses. Letters of wishes guide those responsible for administering the inheritance of more diverse assets. They can help to build an embedded ethos within your family and create a roadmap for the future that successive generations can follow.
Areas where we can help
- Asset protection on marriage
- Business succession
- Family companies and partnerships of various forms
- Family Investment Companies / Partnerships
- Life insurance and life insurance trusts
- Tax planning
- Trusts
- Wills
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Related services
Key contacts
Our succession planning experience
Acted as an executor and trustee in the administration of large complex estate where the deceased died before finalising his succession planning or business planning.
Advised numerous high net worth clients on their personal affairs, succession planning and philanthropy (including the creation and administration of charitable entities established by those clients).
Wills and succession planning for high net worth couple with significant assets and complex family arrangements to ensure inheritance tax planning while retaining asset protection.
Advising a family business owner on succession planning for the business working closely with our corporate team with whom we ensure a holistic approach for clients.
Our client successes
Structuring wealth for generations
2 min
Discover how we work with families to help them create appropriate holding structures for family wealth and governance.
How we made a difference
Related thinking
Ice-cream wars – a cautionary tale on family business inheritance
The taxation of non-doms: one step closer to the dawn of a new era
Cripps receives top rankings in Chambers High Net Worth guide
Cripps private wealth team expands with appointment of new partner
Family Investment Companies: the latest bee in HMRC’s bonnet
Contact us
If you have a question or need advice, please let us know how we can help.
