5 Stone Buildings are an outstanding set able to cover the full range of private client matters. They’re accessible and the go-to set in private client and tax matters.

Simon has substantial experience of advising on tax issues and estate planning. He frequently drafts trust deeds, deeds of variation and specialist will clauses and advises on the tax consequences. His work often involves advising on the availability of reliefs such as APR/BPR, the gift with reservation rules, and giving related planning advice. Simon is also happy to provide computational assistance where it is helpful (e.g. grossing calculations).

Examples of more specialist tax matters that Simon has recently advised on include:

• Application of DOTAS to a trust scheme and drafting representations to HMRC
• Providing advice on unwinding Home Loan schemes and drafting the necessary documents
• Re-arrangement of companies within a group held on a family discretionary trust
• Disguised remuneration rules in the context of discretionary trust that included employees
• Drafting Discounted Gift trusts and advising on tax consequences
• Advising on efficacy of Loaned Gift scheme
• Registration obligations under the beneficial ownership register
• Resettlements of trusts
• Aspects of employee benefit trusts, including validity of the trust, disguised remuneration rules and IHT issues
• ‘Zim Properties’ issues, and tax consequences of settling litigation
• Advising on availability of APR during a proprietary estoppel dispute

Simon also advises on offshore matters and often advises clients on their domicile and residency status. Examples of recent offshore advice include:

• Advising on establishing excluded property trusts (including effects of changes to domicile rules and remittance basis)
• Tax issues related to Grantor Trusts, and establishing ‘treaty protected trusts’
• CGT “migration” charges
• Tax residency of trustees
• Remittance of income and gains, and matching rules

Simon undertakes chancery litigation work broadly in line with chambers’ profile, including family provision claims under the 1975 Act, contentious probate claims and TOLATA disputes. He also acts in claims that have a tax component, especially “Pitt v Holt” claims to set aside trusts on the basis of tax planning errors. Examples of recent cases that he has been instructed in include:

• Rescission claim to set aside a deed of appointment which had mistakenly triggered an IHT charge
• VTA application to remove an 18-25 trust and replace with a standard discretionary trust
• VTA application to postpone trust vesting period for 80 years
• Setting aside a lifetime gift of a farm to a non-resident beneficiary where gift relief was not available
• Setting aside an attempt to establish a disabled person’s trust which had led to an unforeseen IHT charge
• Rectification of a will where a beneficiary mistakenly received a double legacy
• Rectifying a deed of variation

Chartered Institute of Taxation

On 12th March 2021 Simon Douglas and Oliver Marre recorded a webinar titled – Capital Tax Update.

If you were unable to join this webinar a copy of the recording is available for you to view at your convenience. Please click here to view. 

On 19th February 2021 Simon Douglas and Sarah Haren recorded a webinar titled Tax issues that can arise in private litigation.

If you were unable to join this webinar a copy of the recording is available for you to view at your convenience. Please click here to view.  

On 9th October 2021 Simon recorded a webinar titled – Tax Issues for Personal Representatives.

If you were unable to join this webinar a copy of the recording is available for you to view at your convenience. Please click here to view.  

On 29th May 2020 Simon recorded a webinar about Nil Rate Band Discretionary Trusts.

If you were unable to join this webinar a copy of the recording is available for you to view at your convenience. Please click here to view.

DPhil, University of Oxford (2009)
MPhil, University of Oxford (2007)
BCL, University of Oxford (2005)
LLB, University of Liverpool (2004)

Click here to view Simon’s Privacy Notice.

Books

Liability for Wrongful Interferences with Chattels (Hart 2011)

(co-editor) Landmark Cases in Property Law (Hart 2015)

(co-editor) Defences in Equity (Hart 2018)

Articles

(with Sinead Agnew) ‘Self-Declarations of Trust’ [2019] Law Quarterly Review (forthcoming)

(with Ben McFarlane) ‘Property and Analogy’ [2019] Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (forthcoming)

(with Paul Davies) ‘Tax Mistakes Post-Pitt v Holt’ (2018) 32 Trust Law International 3

‘Misuse of Rectification in the Law of Trusts’ (2018) 134 Law Quarterly Review 138

‘Trusts, Objectivity and Rectification’ in J Penner and P Davies (eds), Equity, Trusts and Commerce (Hart 2017)

(with B McFarlane) ‘Sham Trusts’ in R Hickey (ed), Modern Studies in Property Law (Hart 2017)

(with I Goold) ‘Property in the Human Biomaterials: A New Methodology’ [2016] Cambridge Law Journal 478

‘Reforming Implied Easements’ (2015) 131 Law Quarterly Review 251

‘How to Reform Section 62 of the Law of Property Act 1925’ [2015] 79 Conveyancer 13

‘Wrongful Interferences with Chattels’ in Halsbury’s Laws of England and Wales (2015)

‘The Argument for Property Rights in Body Parts’ (2012) 40 Journal of Medical Ethics 23

‘The Scope of Conversion: Property and Contract’, [2011] Modern Law Review 329

‘The Nature of Conversion’ [2009] Cambridge Law Journal 198

‘The Abolition of Detinue’ [2008] Conveyancer 30

‘Converting Contractual Rights’ [2008] Lloyds Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 129