Hannah advises on a broad range of private client issues including tax, particularly tax issues affecting international clients, HMRC enquiries, asset structuring and associated governance issues, estate and succession planning, wills and trusts.
Hannah acts for high-net-worth individuals and internationally mobile families as well as their family offices, charities, and trustees. The advice she gives often involves helping clients to navigate complex international tax and estate planning, advising on high-value trust structures, and coordinating advice from an international team of advisers, balancing a number of often competing family, legal, and practical considerations to help clients plan for the future. Hannah advises on a broad range of private client matters, with particular expertise in tax issues affecting international clients, HMRC enquiries, asset structuring and governance, estate and succession planning, wills, and trusts.
A significant focus of Hannah's practice is advising internationally mobile clients on pre-arrival tax planning, the foreign income and gains (FIG) regime, and trust structures. Almost all of Hannah's work has an international dimension, with a particular focus on US-connected persons and their UK tax issues. She also advises UK-based clients on their personal tax and estate planning needs. Hannah regularly assists clients with HMRC disclosures and enquiries, often involving complex and sensitive personal tax issues.
Hannah holds the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners' Advanced Certificate in UK Tax for International Clients. She was included in the eprivateclient NextGen Leaders list in 2023 and was selected as a Rising Leader in the Private Client Global Elite Directory 2022/23, a peer-nominated list of the world's most respected lawyers advising ultra-high-net-worth clients.
Experience
- Advising ultra-high-net-worth, non-UK domiciled clients on structuring their affairs in light of the post-2017 deemed domicile regime, including implications of becoming deemed domiciled for clients’ non-UK trust and asset-holding structures, and ensuring that trusts retain protected settlement status.
- Advising on a trust restructuring involving multi-jurisdictional tax and trust law issues including complex checks and balances between the power-holders.
- Advising clients in relation to HMRC enquiries into their personal tax affairs, including in relation to issues such as domicile, tax residence and the application of double tax treaties in this context, and the residence status of a non-UK asset-holding company.
- Advising on the distribution of trust and personal assets of a high-net-worth family to beneficiaries in several different jurisdictions and co-ordinating cross-jurisdictional advice in this regard.
- Advising clients who are moving to the UK on pre-arrival planning, including their UK residence status, the taxation of non-domiciled individuals in the UK related issues.