Archive for December, 2013

In a thought-provoking example of the best laid succession plans leading to grave and unforeseen consequences, a landowner’s lifelong obsession with avoiding ‘ruinous taxation’ was the root cause of a venomous dispute that tore apart his family after his death. John Vincent Sheffield had been left with the ‘mental scars’ of seeing his family’s fortune severely depleted by death duties when he was a young man and was determined to avoid the same happening again. His efforts to rebuild the family holdings saw him rise to become Chairman of a public limited company and establish a 1,000-acre farming estate in a prime corner of Hampshire. Mr Sheffield’s fervent wish was that the estate should pass to his heirs intact. He died, aged 95, in 2008, unaware that his attempts to minimise the tax authorities’ share of his fortune would ultimately lead ... Read more