Charlie is a Partner in the Private Client team whose clients include business owners, families and individuals, and the owners of landed estates.

He advises on all aspects of private client work, including wills, trusts, tax, philanthropy, probate and the effective transfer of wealth between generations. He also acts for a number of trustees and beneficiaries, including those involved with onshore and international trusts.

Charlie is ranked in the latest edition of The Legal 500 and is described as “a rising star in the private client sphere. He is highly cognisant of the needs and wishes of the client and works so hard to meet them. He is bright, a natural communicator and a joy to work with”.

Charlie’s technical expertise is complemented by his ability to build deep and lasting relationships based on empathy and trust.

He works in close collaboration with his clients’ wider network of advisers, including accountants, investment managers and independent financial advisors. He also draws on the expertise of specialists from across the firm, including in Trust and Estate Disputes, Residential Property and Corporate Tax.

Recent experience

• Worked with the matriarch of a family business to understand her capital and income requirements, before setting out how to reduce her UK tax exposure, whilst also considering the long-term ownership position of the family business.
• Advised on the termination of a family trust and subsequently advised on and implemented a new ownership structure which sought to minimise capital taxes and took account of wider succession plans for the business.
• Carried out a trust, tax and wider strategic review for a landed estate, the assets of which were held in trust, and advised on the steps by which the trustees could run the business in partnership with the life tenant.
• Advised the trustees of a Will Trust on a hybrid offer in lieu, with the painting accepted by the Revenue in lieu of the trustees’ inheritance tax liability.
• Advised on and set up family investment companies, including how different classes of shares between family members are appropriate.
• Set up an asset holding structure before the sale of a UK family business, which included the creation of UK resident discretionary trusts for each branch of the family, a private trust company, and a Jersey law purpose trust.
• Advised on and established a grant-making charitable trust.