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Sarah Wray

​Senior Associate​​​

I work closely with our UK clients, advising on tax, succession planning and trusts and estates administration, with a particular focus on serving Landed Estates.

sarah-wray

About

I advise on all aspects of private client work. However, my particular specialism is Landed Estates, both rural and urban, and heritage property.

I am passionate about helping my 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.

My work with Trustee / Family / Estate Offices and other professional advisers ensures a collaborative and joined-up approach to tax and succession planning. Taking the time to get to know and understand an Estate’s concerns, ambitions, values, and day-to-day niggles ensures that the solutions which we provide will help it to thrive both now and in the future. 

I achieved the highest score of all students who took the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners’ Advanced Certificate in Administration of Trusts in my sitting, and I was recognised with a Worldwide Excellence Award for this accomplishment.

I am 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

Articles from Sarah Wray

  • 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

  • Pensions: change is in the air once again

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • Sarah Wray writes for the Financial Times' Your Questions column on tax efficient ways to sell a plot of land

    Sarah Wray

    In The Press

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