Business and advanced structures
April 2026 changed the arithmetic and most plans haven’t caught up. Succession planning, business relief and the structures that only make sense above a certain scale.
Business relief was, for decades, the most powerful relief in the inheritance tax system: qualifying business assets passed free of tax, without limit. From 6 April 2026 that changed. Relief that was previously unlimited is now capped, and the excess is taxed.
The consequence is that most succession planning built before 2026 is working from rules that no longer exist. A shareholders’ agreement drafted in 2019 may now create a liability it was designed to avoid. A will that leaves the company outright to a spouse may now waste relief that could have been used.
This page sets out what changed, and what the available structures now are.
What we look at
Business relief after the 2026 reforms
What still qualifies, what the cap means in practice, and the interaction with the nil-rate bands. Where a business is worth more than the capped relief, the planning question becomes how the excess is held and by whom — which is a structural decision, not a drafting one.
Succession and shareholder agreements
Who is entitled to buy, on what terms, and funded how. Cross-option agreements are the usual mechanism: the survivors have an option to buy and the deceased’s estate an option to sell, so relief is preserved rather than lost to a binding obligation. The drafting detail here decides whether relief survives.
Family pension structures
A small self-administered scheme can hold commercial property, lend to the business within statutory limits, and sit outside the estate. From April 2027 unused pension funds are expected to come into scope for inheritance tax, which changes the calculation for every owner-managed company using a pension as a succession vehicle.
Corporate trustees
Where a trust will run for decades, individual trustees die, fall out, lose capacity or simply move abroad. A corporate trustee gives continuity, a professional standard of record-keeping, and someone accountable who is still there in twenty years.
Cryptoassets and complex holdings
Assets that are worthless to your family without the keys, and taxable to your estate regardless. Valuation, custody, access and the drafting that makes them reachable — without ever writing a private key into a document that becomes public on probate.
UK tax for internationally exposed estates
Domicile and the new residence-based rules, double tax treaties, foreign property and the risk of the same asset being taxed twice. Also the practical problem: a will valid in England may not be effective over an apartment in Spain.
What we see going wrong
A shareholders’ agreement nobody has read since it was signed
Binding obligations to buy, rather than options. Under the pre-2026 rules the difference was often academic. It isn’t now.
Relief assumed rather than checked
Not every trading company qualifies, and a business holding significant investment assets may qualify only in part or not at all.
The company left outright to a spouse
The spouse exemption defers the tax rather than removing it, and relief that could have been used on the first death is lost.
No plan for incapacity
If the only signatory on the company account loses capacity and there is no power of attorney, the business cannot pay its staff. This is Step 4, and business owners skip it more often than anyone.
Above £2 million, the arithmetic is different
The residence allowance is withdrawn, relief carries conditions that reward being planned for early, and the interaction between inheritance tax, capital gains tax and stamp duty governs the order things are done in. That's a conversation, not a form.
A senior practitioner takes you through the same eleven questions on a call, and drafts your report from that conversation.
Private Client review
Who this is for
Owner-managed companies, family businesses approaching a generational handover, farms and agricultural estates, and anyone whose estate has outgrown the standard answers. If your estate is over £2 million, or includes a business or assets abroad, the arithmetic is different enough that a conversation is more useful than a form.
Does this apply to you?
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