Top Ten Tax & Trust Lawyers

Spear’s manages to catch up with Wedlake Bell’s head of private client despite her busy schedule, and finds her in a celebratory mood after achieving success for one of the wealthiest people in the world. ‘I was taking a bottle of champagne to a colleague of mine,’ she says, explaining her slight tardiness. ‘We’ve just completed on a £50 million penthouse!’ Such transactions may not be one-offs, since Camilla Wallace reports significant relocations to London, some of those enquiring being ‘exceptionally wealthy’ families. For the international community, Brexit is hardly a problem in their context. ‘One of the [Turkish] family members looked at me and said, “Look, if you want political uncertainty, you go and live under Erdogan, where you can be locked up overnight.”’ Still, Wallace’s British clients do fear what she calls ‘Red Brexit’ – ‘a mismanaged Tory Brexit, which leads to Corbyn’. For them, preparations are under way for a possible move away from the UK, she says. ‘We are seeing them look into putting their assets outside the UK, changing custody so they’re good to go if there are capital exchange issues or capital controls.’ HNWs seek Wallace, who speaks both Spanish and French, for specialist advice on both onshoring and offshoring matters.