Wills, Tax and Trusts
Our Wills, Trusts and Estates team is one of the leading private client teams in the Thames Valley. We are highly experienced and recognised for providing high quality advice in all private client matters, including Wills, Inheritance Tax planning, Estate administration, Powers of Attorney, Court of Protection matters and Trust administration.
We offer a high quality, professional, personal service for individuals and advise on the full range of private client matters.
Our lawyers are highly experienced with a proven track record in providing professional advice in an approachable and sympathetic way on all aspects of Will drafting, Inheritance Tax planning and Capital Gains Tax planning. As part of this, we often advise on the setting up of trusts and the use of other planning options to achieve asset protection and tax effective solutions for our clients.
In addition, we deal with all aspects of estate administration, including applying for Probate and completing all Inheritance Tax reporting on behalf of executors. We are able to advise executors on their obligations and often act for them throughout the process of administering family estates. We deal with estates of all different sizes but, in particular, we regularly deal with complex and multi-jurisdictional estates.
We also advise on the preparation and registration of Lasting Powers of Attorney (including both Property and Financial Affairs LPAs and Health and Welfare LPAs), the registration of Enduring Powers of Attorney, Deputyship applications, Court of Protection matters and work with our Contentious Probate team where Wills or Powers of Attorney are disputed or when claims are made against estates.
Finally, we frequently advise trustees on ongoing trust administration, including advising trustees as to their powers, duties and decision making, completing all relevant Inheritance Tax reporting and drafting the required trust documentation.
In all matters, we take time to consider and understand our clients’ individual circumstances, as well as providing advice that is tailored to their needs. Furthermore, we help our clients to consider possibilities that may arise in the future and ensure the advice that we give is comprehensive and flexible.
The team is highly experienced in advising individuals, couples, families and business owners on their personal legal matters. The team is ranked in the top tier in both the Chambers and Legal 500 legal directories for this area of expertise.
We advise clients daily on the options available to them when making their Wills, including drafting simple Wills where required, but also advising and drafting Wills containing trusts where asset protection and/or tax planning is needed. This has involved the team successfully ensuring that assets are protected under clients’ Wills from risks such as a beneficiary subsequently divorcing, as well as to ensure that funds are preserved in trust for vulnerable beneficiaries and future generations where appropriate. We also advise clients on all Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax matters with a particular focus on completing Inheritance Tax and asset protection planning for clients, and have achieved successful results for many clients over the years.
Our professional advice to clients on Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs), in particular, has in many cases ensured that the families of our clients have been able to make financial decisions and health decisions on behalf of our clients when they have suffered illness or in worst cases mental incapacity.
This careful planning on Wills, LPAs and Inheritance Tax planning has enabled us to achieve positive results for many clients to protect their personal and business interests.
Finally, our extensive experience in dealing with the administration of both estates and trusts enables us to advise executors, trustees and families throughout the process of administering a person’s estate or trust. We have administered highly complex estates and trusts involving wide-ranging assets such as major property portfolios, companies, international assets with successful results to maximise the inheritance for beneficiaries. This experience enables us to advise clients throughout the Probate and Inheritance Tax reporting process to reach the stage of distributing the estate to the beneficiaries.
"The team at Field Seymour Parkes LLP is an efficient and extremely knowledgeable department. They are a safe pair of hands for any standard matters but can equally find pragmatic and valid solutions to more complex issues including at an international level."
"Always on top of their game with very broad and deep knowledge of matters and clients."
"Very caring and professional team with wide range of experience able to deal with complex estates."
"FSP deal ably with complex estates and family matters. They have a large, very well-trained team."
"Their service level is exemplary and responsiveness timely and appropriate."
"The team has excellent knowledge to be able to deal with high-value and complex estates. They make life easier for the families involved in the day-to-day administration of estates and family trusts. They also have the capacity to challenge contentious probate matters where many practices lack these skills."
"The team has an excellent level of technical expertise in private client matters. They provide first-rate customer service to clients. They think outside the box and go the extra mile in the time and effort they put in."
"Their service level and responsiveness is excellent with a very friendly style."
"Rob Crowther’s wealth of knowledge and diplomacy is second to none when advising on complex wills and inheritance tax planning matters. Rob, together with Ben Oliver and Sue Vandersteen, has an ability to always find the best outcome in a professional but robust manner giving confidence to those they act for. With Ben’s expert tax knowledge being a chartered tax adviser and Sue’s expertise in the agricultural space, the three of them make for a formidable team giving the practice the ability to advise on a wide range of matters other practices would have to perhaps subcontract out to other firms."
"The team has excellent knowledge to be able to deal with high-value and complex estates. They make life easier for the families involved in the day-to-day administration of estates and family trusts. They also have the capacity to challenge contentious probate matters where many practices lack these skills."
"The team has an excellent level of technical expertise in private client matters. They provide first-rate customer service to clients. They think outside the box and go the extra mile in the time and effort they put in."
"The team work very well together and are a proper team, with deep collective knowledge on estate practice, IHTA, wills and trusts. All the members respond quickly to emails and can often be reached by phone."
"They are a brilliant out-of-London firm," says an interviewee, adding: "It's a great pleasure to work with the firm, they are extremely responsive."
"They are a very good team; they are responsive and work seamlessly between different departments."
"The Wills, Trusts and Estates team at FSP is very professional, knowledgeable and understanding."
“They really gel well as a team. The chemistry of the people is very good, they have a nice way of working together and you can tell they enjoy what they do and this really comes across."
Contact us
Complete the form or speak to our Head of Wills, Tax & Trusts
