Jenna is an Associate in the firm’s Private Client team.
She acts predominantly for UK resident and domiciled clients including individuals, trustees and the owners of landed estates. She deals with a broad range of private client matters including tax and succession planning, drafting and administering long running and complex trusts, preparing Wills and dealing with the administration of high value estates, including those with heritage property.
Estate planning gives you the opportunity to plan ahead and pass on your assets in accordance to your wishes. Deciding who will inherit your assets, whether it be family, friends or organisations that are important to you, and the way they receive these assets, are all important considerations in an estate planning exercise. As well as ensuring this is done in the most tax efficient way possible.
A sophisticated estate plan will be robust enough to protect everyone’s interests, particularly where there are complex assets at play such as a family business, while being sufficiently flexible to adapt to an evolving tax and legal landscape.
Our award-winning Private Client team specialises in inheritance and estate planning for high net worth families. We will take the time to understand your wishes, talk you through your options and help put in place a bespoke estate plan that best suits your circumstances.
Making a will is a vital part of any estate planning exercise. An up-to-date will ensures that wealth is passed on in accordance with your (the testator’s) wishes and ensures your family members or wider network receive the gifts and shares of your estate that you wish to leave them.
At Forsters, our private client lawyers are experts in drafting and interpreting wills.
We can advise on the making and putting in place of LPAs for both welfare and financial decisions in the event of losing capacity.
Our in-depth understanding of all aspects of UK taxation, enables us to advise you on the most effective use of tax reliefs such as inheritance tax and investment reliefs.
We advise on the set up and running of appropriate holding vehicles, such as trusts or family investment companies. These structures can help provide a greater level of control over your assets.
We advise on business succession and structuring the family business so that it may be passed on effectively in the future.
Tax and succession laws differ vastly between jurisdictions. If you have assets and family members based across the world it is essential to put in place a cross-border estate plan that is informed by how the laws of each relevant jurisdiction interact with each other. With strong connections to advisors across the globe we regularly co-ordinate advice to create a holistic international estate plan that is effective across all applicable jurisdictions.
Our specialist US-UK team has vast experience of estate planning for individuals and families with US connections.
Dealing with the death of a family member or close friend is always difficult, and the last thing anyone wants to think about when grieving is how to navigate complicated tax and legal procedures.
Forsters has a dedicated team of probate lawyers who have a wealth of experience assisting with the daunting task of administering an estate, relieving the family of the administrative burden and stress of finalising a loved one’s affairs.
We adopt a pragmatic and empathetic approach when working with personal representatives, family and close friends of the deceased, to help guide them through the intricacies of the probate process at what is so often a distressing and stressful time.
We assist with administrations where the deceased died with a valid will, and those in which no will was made.
An international element can vastly increase the complexity of the administration of an estate. We are well versed in dealing with cross-border succession and taxation laws, including analysing international treaties and reviewing a deceased’s domicile, so that we can clearly establish who is to inherit and how much tax is due.
We regularly assist personal representatives of individuals who died domiciled in another jurisdiction but with assets in the UK (or with certain non-UK assets that are taxable, such as interests in companies holding UK properties), as well as UK domiciled individuals who held assets abroad. We help the personal representatives navigate tax reporting requirements and the process of obtaining the grant of representation, ensuring the correct application is made. Our broad cross-border experience and contacts in other jurisdictions mean that we can co-ordinate the administration of international estates, so that the personal representatives do not find themselves trying to reconcile apparently conflicting advice given to them by lawyers in different jurisdictions.
We are very familiar with HM Revenue & Custom’s (HMRC) complex disclosure requirements and valuation principles, and have a thorough understanding of how best to present Inheritance Tax (IHT) returns. This enables us to streamline the reporting process by pre-empting queries that might be raised by HMRC. We employ our technical expertise to review and ensure all applicable IHT reliefs are claimed and maximised throughout the course of the administration.
We are experts in dealing with probate matters for business owners and entrepreneurs, and those with interests in large family structures, whether longstanding companies, country estates or agricultural holdings.
Where there is not enough liquidity to pay the IHT due on the application for the grant, we work with the personal representatives and HMRC so that an agreement can be reached and the administration of the estate is not unduly delayed.
Where there is an irreconcilable disagreement between the personal representatives themselves, or between them and the beneficiaries, and the administration of the estate has therefore ground to a halt, we are able to step in and act as court-appointed administrators. Our credentials as practitioners mean that we are often appointed to disentangle complex estates and ensure that they are dealt with in a timely manner.
We appreciate the importance of tax mitigation and passing on wealth to the next generation in the most tax efficient way possible. During the administration, we keep this under constant review and, if appropriate, can prepare sometimes very complex documents to alter the destination of assets so that tax is mitigated, and orderly succession ensured.