Oliver Embley

Oliver is a partner in our Private Client team who specialises in tax planning for high net worth UK domiciled and resident individuals and trustees.

His practice also covers contentious trust work, including bringing and defending claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, mental capacity claims, claims for and against trustees, and professional negligence claims involving tax.

He regularly acts in claims under the Variation of Trusts Act 1958 to extend the perpetuity period and amend the administrative provisions of trusts worth up to £300m.

Oliver acts for a number of landed estates. His non-contentious practice includes advising trustees, high net worth individuals, farmers, landed estates and entrepreneurs on Inheritance Tax planning, with particular expertise in Agricultural Property Relief  and Business Property Relief claims.

Oliver also prepares wills for high net worth individuals and deals with the administration of high-value and complex estates.

• Advising a 7,500 acre estate in Cornwall on ownership issues, trust structuring, Inheritance Tax Agricultural Property Relief (”APR”), Business Property Relief (”BPR”) and high-level strategic planning.
• Acting in a Variation of Trusts Act (”VTA”) claim for a beneficiary of two trusts worth around £50m to extend the perpetuity period by 125 years and amend the administrative provisions.
• Acting for the administrator of an estate facing a claim that the deceased owed a significant loan to a child who was not a beneficiary of the will.
• Advising two young adult beneficiaries of an estate worth over £300m on structuring their inheritances using limited partnership structures due to the clients being US citizens.
• Acting in the reported case of PQ and another v RS and another [2019] EWHC 1643 (Ch) where a beneficiary born out of marriage was successfully added to the class of beneficiaries of an £80m trust fund.

• The Guardian 2 September 2024; Hewlett Packard to pursue Mike Lynch’s estate for up to $4bn | Hewlett-Packard – The Guardian
• IFA Magazine 18 June 2024. Will we see Inheritance Tax abolished? Legal expert weighs in on the IHT debate – IFA Magazine
• Oxford University Press, Trusts & Trustees 2 May 2022 Advancing forward – narrowing the divide between powers of advancement and powers of appointment | Trusts & Trustees | Oxford Academic

Oliver is a full member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP).

Oliver has been named a ‘Rising Star’ in The Legal 500. He is listed in the Cityweath Future Leaders List and was named Citywealth’s Senior/Managing Associate of the Year in 2020. In 2021, Oliver won Partner of the Year at the Citywealth Future Leaders Awards.