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Private Client

Recognised as a global leader in private client advice, Macfarlanes draws on many decades of experience to advise our clients on how best to manage their affairs in a complex and ever-changing world.

We are the only City firm to combine both top-ranked private client and corporate practices. This makes us the natural choice for those looking for co-ordinated advice on both their business and personal affairs.

Our work is wide-ranging and international and we use our independence to combine our own know-how on cross-border issues together with the best local advice in other jurisdictions.

We provide our clients with clear, comprehensive and pragmatic advice, working alongside their other professional advisers. We aim not merely to explain the law but to give practical advice on how to achieve our clients’ objectives and implement their plans.

Our clients are entrepreneurs, family offices, trustees, private banks, charities and individuals.

Whatever their goal, we will guide our clients smoothly through the intricacies of the law both within the UK and overseas.

Expertise:

Recent work

Next generation

Trust structuring and estate planning for the next generation of an internationally mobile family with a history of entrepreneurship and wealth creation.

Estate planning and philanthropy

Estate planning for a highly successful UK businessperson with an interest in supporting charity and a range of other causes.

Cross-border estates and succession

Estate planning for a prominent entrepreneur with a particular focus on establishing a family partnership for the financial education and participation of the next generation.

Trusts: domestic and international

Domestic and international trust and estate planning. Due to the age and special circumstances of some of the trusts, this required a strong working knowledge of historic trust legislation.

Family office and professional trustees

Assisting in the provision and co-ordination of corporate tax, corporate and M&A, financial services and trust advice to a large and active family office and professional trustees.

Cross-border philanthropy and trusts

Planning and structuring advice for the migration of a long-establish charitable trust between two international financial centres.

Trust dispute

Advising on the settlement of a long-running dispute between the trustees and beneficiaries of a complex non-UK trust structure concerning both the historic administration of the trusts and disputes between family members about their respective interests.

Taxation of financial products

Advising the tax departments of international private banks on the UK tax treatment of investment products and structuring investment portfolios for UK resident individuals.

High value estate

Advising two beneficiaries of an estate worth in excess of $100m on the strategy for resolving the significant underrated tax liabilities of the deceased in both the UK and US; this involved careful consideration of international tax treaties and application of EU law to reduce the incidence of criminal penalties.

Coordinating tax statuses

Assisting a non-resident Indian family with substantial retained business interests in India in creating a family office to help coordinate their diverse tax statuses and the family’s asset holding structures.

Trustee interest disposal

Advising trustees on the proposed sale of their interest in a significant trading business abroad where the trustee wished to dispose of the asset before considering the distribution of the proceeds and the winding up the trust in the context of a long-running family dispute.

Multi-jurisdictional and multi-generational family (BIO)

Advising the family office of a large, multi-jurisdictional and multi-generational family, with significant trusts managed from the Isle of Man. This has included an annual review of the trust tax pool calculations and ensuring that these are appropriately declared where relevant in individual beneficiaries’ UK tax returns.

International estate and succession planning

Reviewing the existing estate and succession planning and family governance arrangements for an international family with homes, business interests and other assets in numerous jurisdictions. Working closely with the family office to devise and implement arrangements which better reflect the family’s needs and objectives.

Wealth protection for a family

Leading a project which involved protecting a family’s significant private wealth. This included setting up two new trusts in two different jurisdictions and the project included advising on asset protection strategies, confidentiality / privacy / reporting considerations and UK tax and family governance issues.

Bi-cameral protectorship and investment committee structure

Devising and implementing a highly bespoke bi-cameral protectorship and investment committee structure for a group of trusts which control a Russian client’s interest in a significant and publically quoted business.

Multi-family office

Advising in relation to the formation of a multi-family office for two families who had decided to pool their investments. This included advice in relation to the regulatory aspects, creation of an in-house hedge fund, recruitment of a team of investment professionals from a major international bank and advice in relation to executive incentivisation.

Estate litigation

Acting for the heirs of the estate of a wealthy businessman and his wife relating to an acrimonious dispute which involved questions of capacity, theft, and trust issues, as well as significant undisclosed tax liabilities in the UK and US, and we have been overseeing multiple international proceedings for many years. We have advised on probate, Court of Protection and High Court proceedings.

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Get in touch

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Piers Barclay

Partner

+44 (0)20 7849 2530 Email Piers

What people are saying

"Every single partner on the Macfarlanes team is excellent, I have never seen that at any other firm. Macfarlanes is our number one choice for very complex international private client planning."

Chambers HNW 2025