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Sarah Wray

Partner

Sarah advises on all aspects of private client work. However, her particular specialism is Landed Estates, both rural and urban, and heritage property. 

sarah-wray

About

Sarah advises on all aspects of private client work. However, her particular specialism is Landed Estates, both rural and urban, and heritage property.  Sarah is passionate about helping her clients, many of whom have held their Estates for hundreds of years, to build strategies which ensure the long-term integrity and success of the Estate. This involves ensuring good internal governance, with open dialogue between trustees, beneficiaries and key executives, within a flexible structure able to respond to the pressures, and opportunities, of the modern world.

Sarah is admitted to practise in England and Wales.

Experience

  • Advising landed Estates on the efficient structuring of Estate assets, for example through “Balfour” partnership arrangements or the use of corporates or trusts.
  • Assisting Estates with managing inter-generational wealth and control transfers.
  • Advising in relation to heritage exemptions such as conditional exemption and the acceptance in lieu schemes.
  • Advising on the establishment and good governance of Trustee / Family / Estate Office functions. 
  • Advising in relation to offshore trust structures, particularly in respect of restructuring to respond to changes in UK tax legislation and better meet succession objectives.
  • Bringing Variation of Trust Act applications to amend the terms of trusts.

Recognition

  • legal-500-leading-associate-2025
  • T35U35_RGB

Our thinking

  • Charles Russell Speechlys Partner Promotions 2025

    Bart Peerless

    News

  • Sarah Wray writes for Professional Adviser on the inheritance tax consultation on agricultural and business property relief

    Sarah Wray

    In The Press

  • When is 20% not 20%? The real impact of the proposed changes to business property relief on trading companies

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - the inheritance tax Consultation on agricultural and business property

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • The April 2026 changes to Agricultural and Business Property Relief

    Sarah Wray

    Insights

  • Succession and tax strategy for farmers and business owners post-Budget

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • The Budget: further details on reforms to agricultural and business property emerge

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • Farming Life quotes Sarah Wray on the reform of Agricultural Property Relief announced in the UK Budget and the impact on farmers and landowners

    Sarah Wray

    In The Press

  • The Budget: implications for agricultural property relief

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • Sarah Wray writes for Farmers Guardian on what landowners might expect from the Autumn Budget

    Sarah Wray

    In The Press

  • Budgeting for change: what should Landed Estates be doing before the Budget?

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • Vulnerable elders : a harrowing story and the lessons which need to be learnt

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • Sarah Wray writes for International Adviser on what might be in store for personal taxation under a potential Labour government

    Sarah Wray

    In The Press

  • Balfour structuring for rural Estates: what might be next?

    Sarah Wray

    Insights

  • A Labour government: what might be in store for personal taxation?

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • Heritage property and conditional exemption

    Sarah Wray

    Insights

  • First time buyers relief and trusts

    Sarah Wray

    Insights

  • ATED and the farmhouse

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

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