UK Law and Practice Contributed by: Roger Gherson, Alfred Gherson, Lisa Uttley and David Tipping, Gherson Solicitors
• A person will be resident in the UK if they meet any of the following tests: • they spend at least 183 days in the UK in that tax year; • they have their main or only home in the UK; and • they work full-time in the UK. If none of the automatic tests is met, there is a suf - ficient ties test under which a person’s residence is determined by the number of days they have spent in the UK and the number of connections they have to the UK. The number of ties they can have to the UK before becoming resident depends on whether they have been resident in any of the previous three tax years. Ordinarily, if a person is resident for a particular tax year, they are treated as a resident for the entirety of that tax year. In certain circumstances, when a per - son is either arriving in or leaving the UK, “split-year treatment” will apply, treating the person as resident for only a portion of the tax year and as non-resident for the remainder. Tax Residence – Long-Term UK Residence From 6 April 2025, the UK stopped using domicile as a connecting factor for tax and instead moved towards an entirely residence-based system of taxation. For IHT, this meant creating an entirely new connecting factor called long-term UK residence. A person will be a long-term UK resident for a particu - lar tax year if they have been resident in the UK for at least ten out of the previous 20 tax years. A person will cease to be a long-term UK resident if they are non- resident for a minimum number of years. The number ranges from three to ten and increases with the length of their residence in the UK. 7.2 Expeditious Citizenship Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) must be obtained before an individual can apply for British citizenship by naturalisation. The standard route to ILR requires five years of continuous lawful residence in the UK; however, certain visa categories offer an expedited three-year route to ILR, including the Global Talent visa and the Innovator Founder visa.
There is presently no direct investment-based route to UK settlement or citizenship following the closure of the Tier 1 (Investor) visa in February 2022. Unless they are applying as a spouse or civil partner of a British citizen, citizenship can be applied for at the earliest after 12 months of holding ILR, provided the individual has been resident in the UK for five years. In practice, this means those individuals on the stand - ard five-year ILR route would be eligible to apply for citizenship after six years of residence, while those on an expedited three-year route to ILR could apply for citizenship in year five. Notably, there is a statutory discretion “in the special circumstances of any particular case” to naturalise a person whose time restrictions were lifted less than 12 months prior. Where the applicant has a British citizen spouse or civil partner, the qualifying period for naturalisation is three years instead of five years and the applicant must have no time restrictions on their immigration status only on the date of application (not for a whole 12 months). So, in such cases, the spouse/civil partner can apply for naturalisation immediately after obtain - ing ILR, provided they have been resident in the UK for three years. That being said, the standard route to ILR for a spouse or civil partner of a British citizen requires five years of continuous lawful residence in the UK in this capacity. Different categories of immigration status lead to ILR at different times, eg, after three, five or ten years. 8. Planning for Minors, Adults with Disabilities and Elders 8.1 Special Planning Mechanisms England and Wales provide several special planning mechanisms for minors and adults with disabilities. For disabled persons, a trust qualifying is excluded from the relevant property regime (no ten-year or exit charges), with gifts into the trust treated as PETs. A vulnerable beneficiary election allows trust income and gains to be taxed at the beneficiary’s personal
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