Setting up a Family Office

ISOLAS LLP offers a full suite of family office services.

Our tailored approach gives our clients the options, solutions and results they require because we recognise, nurture and protect the individual needs of our client’s personal and business affairs.

We provide a full and comprehensive range of services to High Net Worth Individuals, their families and their businesses. Our services include personal legal and tax advice, advice on effective and transparent asset protection and wealth management structures through family office arrangements, family governance, corporate and commercial advice, private equity and philanthropy.

Whatever the circumstances of our clients, we will help them to achieve their goals and to create a legacy that lasts.

Services include, amongst others, family governance services, including the drafting of a family constitution, implementing a governance structure for family offices; forward planning and succession management, conflict management, and estate management.

In the private equity context, we work with clients across the full spectrum of private equity activity and support our clients from a legal advisory perspective – in particular, our clients highly value our expertise in fund formation and our ability to manage multi-jurisdictional projects;

In relation to business enterprise we are able to offer the services in the establishment and structuring of family offices, wealth management structuring, as well as acting as a liaison with licensed providers in the wealth management context generally;

In the commercial context we are able to offer a full range of services enabling our clients to run their business efficiently and effectively. We are able to offer capital duty and tax planning, review and drafting of contracts, the establishment of employee share participation schemes, advising in relation to shareholder disputes and even on relocations.

Our private client offering tends to the needs of high net worth individuals and their families, advising and assisting where required in respect of legal and commercial matters, asset holding & wealth management, companies, trusts & foundations, succession planning & wills, philanthropy and, of course, relocation.

Speaking of property, Gibraltar’s property market has grown significantly in recent years, and continues to do so. In relation to commercial property we are able to advise in relation to renewals of leases, new construction, sale and purchase as well as in respect of landlord and tenant disputes. In the residential property context, we are able to advise in relation to all relevant matters including advice on stamp duty, registration costs as well as assisting you on the financing elements of a property acquisition.

ESTATE PLANNING
Estate planning encompasses planning and consolidating how an individual’s assets will be preserved, managed, or distributed, whether during a person’s life time or after one’s death. Whatever the concern, it is important for every individual or business to put their affairs in order, something which is often hard to do as the business of everyday life takes over.

There are a number of ways in which individuals may seek to estate plan. These may include from the simple establishment of a will for more straightforward estates, to more complex testamentary trusts where asset protection and longevity is an underlying consideration and more complex cross border corporate or trust structures for larger estates where there may be assets in various jurisdictions. Often in more complex estates there will be a mixture of requirements, including wills in different jurisdictions, tax planning, the consideration of inter vivos gifts and perhaps even a family governance structure for the transition of family wealth.

Succession planning is not easy and requires an understanding of the numerous issues which may arise in relation to the ownership of assets and the various family state of affairs that may affect individual interests. Here at ISOLAS LLP, we have the expertise to deal with such, we understand that COVID-19 is currently affecting each individual and/or business in a different way and therefore our intention is to work together to ensure that your interests are preserved and managed efficiently.

It can be said that the most common concern for individuals at present is the realisation of the importance of having at the minimum, a Will and this is something that can be considered and dealt with in the additional time provided by the need for isolation at home. This article has been created for the purpose of ensuring your understanding of the requirements for the execution and the witnessing of a Will, the effect of COVID-19 in relation to such execution and witnessing and to highlight the measures we have in place in order to ensure that this minimum level of testamentary arrangements can be validly concluded during this difficult time.