Charlotte is a private client lawyer and a full member of STEP (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) with specific qualifications in advising vulnerable clients. Her work includes wills, estate planning, lasting powers of attorney (LPAs), probate, and both will and lifetime trusts.
Committed to finding tax-efficient solutions, Charlotte works with tax advisors and IFAs to provide holistic advice. She acts as executor and trustee, court-appointed independent administrator, as attorney and on behalf of attorneys in LPAs, and she represents executors and beneficiaries.
Charlotte administers estates of varying size and complexity, including intestacies. She has experience in unusual grant of probate applications and re-sealing overseas grants of representation for international clients with UK assets.
Before qualifying as a lawyer, Charlotte worked for 12 years as a freelance television Production Manager and Line Producer. With her media background, she writes about private client issues with an unusually creative perspective.
Sensitive, diligent and very personable. She is excellent in her role. She has a lovely manner and navigates her way around difficult client issues with delicacy and ease. She has a good sense of humour and is down to earth. Highly recommended.
The Legal 500 2022
Deals very efficiently with matters referred to her and provides clients with a pragmatic and efficient approach. Charlotte has a refreshing enthusiastic approach to complex and sometimes challenging estates.
The Legal 500 2022
Compassionate, astute and a wonderful lawyer. She listens to her clients and actively works with them to create a legal solution for their problems. She can diffuse tense situations and create a safe space for her clients. Charlotte is a private client solicitor who truly cares about her clients and providing the best possible service for them.
The Legal 500 2022
Expertise
- Wills
- Estate planning
- Inheritance tax
- Lasting powers of attorney
- Advising vulnerable clients
- Mental capacity
- Estate administration
- Intestacy
- Alternative probate grants
- Re-sealing foreign grants
Experience
- Acted for multiple high-net-worth clients, many of whom are in creative and media industries, recently bereaved or in second marriages, and clients with minor or vulnerable beneficiaries, providing advice and drafting asset protection wills.
- Acted for the sole executor and beneficiary in multiple family estates, including applications for grants of probate where deaths occurred over 20 years prior, and successfully engaged with HMRC to exercise their discretion in accepting an out-of-time claim for the transferable nil rate band over 12 years late, saving £180,000 in IHT.
- Acted as a court-appointed independent trustee in a complex estate involving multiple properties and international assets.
- Acted as a professional trustee of a discretionary will trust, maintaining communication with a vulnerable beneficiary.
- Acted for executor/trustees of a discretionary will trust in the administration of the trust and ongoing support for a vulnerable discretionary beneficiary.
- Advised on the use of deeds of variation across family members to optimise inheritance tax treatment and achieve tax-efficient redistribution of estate assets.
- Advised on and successfully maximised a claim for Agricultural Relief to reduce Inheritance Tax liability on qualifying agricultural property.
- Advised on and provided independent legal advice to beneficiaries in an intestate estate where family relationships had broken down, ensuring their interests were properly protected.
- Advised on a successful application for a grant ad colligenda bona where the estate was at risk and urgent sale of a property needed.
Recognition
Full member of STEP (the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) with a distinction in the diploma in advising vulnerable clients
Career
Charlotte qualified as a solicitor in 2014. Prior to joining Keystone Law in 2025, she worked at the following firms:
- Buckles Solicitors
- Wedlake Bell
- DKLM