For financial advisers
The legal half of the work you already do: wills and powers of attorney, cross-option agreements alongside the protection you write, and pensions in the estate from April 2027.
Most advice you give has a legal document behind it, and the document is usually someone else's job. A shareholder protection policy without a cross-option agreement does not do what the client thinks. A client with no will has a plan that stops working the day they die.
We draft the documents that sit underneath regulated advice, for your clients, without offering them regulated advice ourselves. We are a law firm; we are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and we do not advise on investments, pensions or protection products.
That is the point of the arrangement. There is nothing in your service line for us to sell into, and the engagement says so in terms.
What we undertake
These go in the engagement. They are the reason the arrangement works at all.
We do not cross-sell into your service line
We will not offer your client accountancy, tax compliance, audit, financial planning or investment advice, and we will not introduce them to anyone who does. If they ask us, we tell them to ask you. The engagement says so, so it binds us.
The client stays yours
We act on the matter you refer and nothing else. Where we notice something outside it that is worth looking at, we tell you, and you decide whether it goes anywhere.
You are told what happened
A short note when we take the matter on, and another when it closes, saying what was done and what the client was advised. Enough for you to pick the conversation up, and never anything covered by privilege that the client has not agreed we can share.
You get a named solicitor
You get a direct line to the solicitor doing the work. Your client is not passed between fee earners, and neither are you.
The cost is agreed before anything starts
Your client gets the scope and the fee in writing before we begin. You are never in the position of having sent someone to an open-ended bill.
What we do for your clients
Cross-option agreements
You write the shareholder protection; the agreement is what makes it work. Options to buy on both sides, with no binding obligation, so HMRC does not treat it as a contract for sale and Business Relief survives. Badly drafted, the policy pays and the relief goes.
Wills and lasting powers of attorney
The gap in most client files. Drafted against how the client actually owns their home and what their pension and policy nominations say, because those frequently pass outside the will entirely.
Pensions in the estate, from April 2027
Unused pension funds and most death benefits count towards inheritance tax for deaths on or after 6 April 2027. Expression of wish forms and wills written before the change were built on the opposite assumption, which gives you a reason to review your whole book this year.
Trusts
Drafting and advice on trusts created by will or during a client's lifetime, and the trustees' duties that come with them. We say plainly where a trust does nothing a straightforward will could not.
Probate and estate administration
When a client dies, the assets usually leave. Acting on the estate keeps the family in a relationship with both of us, and the beneficiaries are the next generation of your client book.
Business owners' succession
Where the client owns a business, the will, the shareholder agreement and the protection policy all have to say the same thing. We read all three together.
How it runs
A conversation
What you would refer, what you would not, and the undertaking that we stay out of regulated advice and out of your client relationship.
You introduce, we scope
We speak to the client, set out the scope and the fee in writing, and confirm to you that we have.
Done by one solicitor
The same solicitor throughout, who will talk to you directly where the client agrees.
You are told
A closing note on what was done, so the documents you relied on and the advice you gave still line up.
Questions partners ask
Are you authorised by the FCA?
No. We are a firm of solicitors authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We do not advise on investments, pensions or protection products, and we do not hold ourselves out as able to. That is what makes the arrangement work: there is nothing in your service line for us to sell into.
Will you try to advise our clients on their money?
No, and we are not permitted to. Where a client asks us a question about their investments, pension or protection, we tell them to ask you. The engagement says so, so it binds us.
Why does a cross-option agreement matter if the policy pays out?
Because of the relief. The payout is not the test. HMRC's Inheritance Tax Manual treats a binding contract for the survivors to buy and the personal representatives to sell as taking the shares outside Business Relief. An agreement giving the survivors an option to buy, which they are free not to exercise, does not have that effect. The policy paying is not the test.
What changes for our clients in April 2027?
For deaths on or after 6 April 2027, unused pension funds and most death benefits count towards the estate for inheritance tax. Four categories are excluded by statute. Most expression of wish forms and most wills written before 2024 were completed on the old assumption, so they are worth reading again whatever the client decides to do.
Do you pay for referrals?
Any arrangement of that kind has to be agreed in writing and disclosed to the client under the SRA Code of Conduct. It is a conversation to have openly at the start. Many advisers prefer no fee passing either way, which keeps the disclosure simple for both of us.
Can we offer this to our whole client book at once?
Yes, and the April 2027 change is the natural reason to. We can run a session for your advisers on what has changed and provide a client-facing explainer you send under your own name. Tell us the size of the book and we will scope it against that.
Arrange a conversation
Half an hour on what you would refer, what you would not, and how the undertakings are written down.