Setting Precedents

IDR Law successfully overturns negligent asset preservation trust and charge to save £120k in Capital Gains Tax!

 Kate Saunders at IDR Law, with the assistance of Ruth Hughes of 5 Stone Buildings, successfully secured a High Court order setting aside a charge connected to an asset preservation trust that would have had created a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) liability payable by our clients, Mr & Mrs Page, if they had subsequently sold their home.

The asset preservation trust concerned was created following the advice given to the Pages by Universal Wealth Preservation. The trust was created with the sole agreed intention of saving the Page family from potential care home fees, by excluding their property from their estate with a charge against the property. But, they were NOT informed that the arrangement also created a potential CGT charge of up to £120,000 should the property have been sold later.

The arrangement with the charge and trust left the Pages effectively unable to rehouse themselves as a sale of their property would have triggered a massive CGT bill under the arrangement. The Pages were adamant that, if they had been advised of this tax consequence at the outset, by Universal Wealth Protection, they would never have entered the arrangement.

Mr Long, from the wealth adviser company, failed to advise of the CGT risk and was deemed negligent (Indeed Mr Long and several other advisors at the organisations were later imprisoned for contempt of court).

Deputy Master Nurse, hearing our application to save the Pages from the consequences of the negligent advice, agreed to set aside the Charge based on mistake and update the register at HM Land Registry to confirm the removal.

The judge confirmed our own view that it would be “unconscionable to allow the Charge to stand”.

 For more information please do contact us on 01423 637050 or email [email protected].uk. 

A full copy of the judgment can be found under case citation – Page -v- Page (2020) EWHC 394(Ch)