Douglas Smith > Foot Anstey > Bristol, England > Lawyer Profile

Douglas Smith

02380173048 douglas.smith@footanstey.com

Work Department

Private Wealth | UK Succession and Tax | Wills & Probate

Position

Douglas is our Technical Tax and Trust Counsel with over 30 years’ experience in estates, tax and trusts law. He joined Foot Anstey from Thrings in April 2020, having previously been a partner at Blake Morgan for most of his career.

Qualifying initially as a barrister and subsequently re-qualifying as a solicitor,  Douglas has considerable experience at advising on how to make the most of available tax reliefs and trust structures when dealing with property, business shares and other assets. His clients appreciate his clear and sensible advice on questions around stamp taxes, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and many other aspects of the UK’s taxation regime as they relate to the purchase, sale or gifting of assets. Douglas has administered a number of highly complicated estates, including those with assets in multiple jurisdictions, and is well placed to support families with a deceased relative’s affairs.

With a special interest in heritage property, Douglas is also highly knowledgeable of the law in this niche area. Clients regularly seek his counsel on how to manage heritage assets and benefit in particular from his experience of dealing with HMRC’s heritage property team.

Douglas also has experience in drafting prepaid funeral plan trusts for funeral directors who wish to establish funeral plan businesses and ensuring that the trust provisions are consistent with the plan agreement and that both documents are so far as possible drafted in the most tax efficient way. Douglas is also able to provide any additional advice that may subsequently be required in connection with the administration of the trust (including an application for membership of the Funeral Planning Authority) .

Douglas also provides UK tax advice to clients who are resident and/or domiciled abroad (i.e. individuals, trustees of offshore trusts and person’s responsible for other offshore entities).