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Seeking case studies and commentary: What high net-worth clience (1m+) see as the biggest threat to their wealth, and how they are protecting their wealth

Journalist: Aaliyah Ahmed, The Times

ended 04. August 2026

Recent research by Wealth Club reveals an extraordinary shift in high-net-worth sentiment: HNW investors now see tax hikes and government policy (45%) as a vastly bigger threat to their wealth than inflation, market volatility, or geopolitical events. With 96% expecting taxes to rise in the next 12 months - specifically fearing inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and potential wealth taxes - we are looking for qualitative commentary and case studies from financial advisers, wealth managers, tax specialists, and estate planners.

What We’re Looking For:

The Biggest Fears: Based on your HNW clients (£1m+ liquid assets / net worth), what specific policy or tax changes are keeping them up at night right now?

Mitigation Strategies: What practical, proactive steps are your clients actually taking right now to shield their assets? (e.g., gifting early, making full use of VCT/EIS tax reliefs, relocating assets, adjusting capital gains strategies, shifting into trusts/AIM ISAs).

Anonymised Client Examples: Short, real-world examples of how a client (£1m+ to £5m+ band) recently restructured their finances or changed their investment behavior directly in response to tax policy fears.

Deadline: Today (04/08/2026) at 12:30pm

7 responses from the Newspage community

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Graham Nicoll
Financial Planner, Chartered FCSI at NCL Wealth Partners
For many HNW clients, the biggest threat is now policy uncertainty rather than market volatility. They fear changes to inheritance tax, capital gains tax and the treatment of pensions or business assets could undermine plans built over decades.

One family, worth over £20m with £5m in liquid assets and the remainder in property, is gifting growth shares in the family property company into trust, moving future growth outside the estate. Trusts and onshore bonds are also being used to invest liquid wealth tax-efficiently while retaining some flexibility around income and capital.

The family is gifting surplus income into JISAs and pensions for grandchildren, while whole-of-life policies will help fund the remaining inheritance tax liability.

The key shift is from passive concern to earlier, gradual wealth transfer from parents to children to grandchildren, without compromising the client’s own security.
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Nouran Moustafa
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
HNW clients do not fear paying tax; they fear planning under one rulebook and retiring under another. Markets are volatile, but tax changes can permanently alter what a family keeps. The decision to bring most unused pensions into estates for inheritance tax from April 2027 has made succession planning far more urgent.

Clients are reviewing wills, pension nominations, gifting, trusts and the timing of capital gains. They are maximising ISA and pension allowances and considering VCT or EIS only where the underlying risk genuinely suits them—not simply because the tax relief looks attractive.

The biggest mistake is panic planning. Giving away too much too early, crystallising gains unnecessarily or buying unsuitable high-risk investments can cost more than the tax saved. The answer is coordinated financial, tax and legal planning based on the family’s actual objectives, not rumours about the next Budget.
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Eamonn Prendergast
Chartered Financial Adviser at Palantir Financial Planning Ltd
For many of my HNW clients in the £3m–£15m range, the focus has clearly shifted from building wealth to protecting it and passing it on efficiently
They’re increasingly concerned about inheritance tax, frozen thresholds and the inclusion of pensions in estates from 2027. What they want isn’t complexity or product-driven solutions — it’s clarity, control and flexibility.

The advice they value most is long-term, strategic planning: how to structure assets, how and when to gift, and how to balance supporting family during their lifetime versus leaving a legacy. There’s also a growing demand for plans that are robust but adaptable, given how often rules are changing.

Ultimately, it’s less about chasing returns and more about certainty — knowing they have a clear, tax-efficient plan that can evolve and protect wealth across generations.
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Tony Redondo
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
High-net-worth UK property investors, the £1m-plus crowd are voting with their feet. Section 24 relief limits, looming CGT rises, second-home council tax surcharges and tighter tenant rules are squeezing portfolio landlords from every side, and many are simply cashing out and liquidating UK residential stock and redeploying into higher-yielding, tax-efficient markets like Dubai, Florida, Thailand and the Mediterranean. FX timing is accelerating the exodus. With sterling near 13-month highs against the euro, sellers are banking real purchasing power abroad with tens of thousands extra on a multi-million-pound conversion. One local client sold four BTLs to raise £1.85m net, locked in the peak rate with a forward FX contract, then split the proceeds between Spanish holiday lets yielding 7%-plus and tax-free Dubai property.
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Paul Denley
CEO at Oakham Wealth Management
Political risk has been on our clients' radar for several years, but its fair to say the anxiety has sharpened. Clients aren't bracing for one dramatic tax grab so much as a continuation of tightening of allowances and reliefs. Inheritance tax remains a big concern, together with CGT and the possibility of broader wealth taxes.

The response isn't panic but sensible planning: reviewing gifting strategies, making full use of pensions and other tax efficient wrappers, and ensuring investment decisions remain commercially driven rather than tax led.

Ahead of recent Budgets, some clients accelerated substantial gifts to their children - several well into seven figures - expecting changes to IHT that never came. They were comfortable taking action because those gifts already formed part of their long term estate plans.
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Harvey Dhillon
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
The fear is inheritance tax. My clients with £1 million or more are rich on paper and cannot spend it. It is stock, a warehouse and shares in their own company. Since April relief is 100 per cent on £2.5 million of business assets each, and £5 million for a couple if it is claimed. Above that, relief halves. That is generous, unless your whole wealth is one company. Take a £5 million company with no spouse's allowance. Up to £500,000 is due. You get ten years to pay, interest free on unquoted trading shares. But it comes out of the business, not a bank account. We do not publish client examples. My clients who are moving get the company valued, not guessed at. They strip out assets it does not use or need and start the seven year gifting clock. Above £325,000 the bill starts falling at year three. Gifting shares triggers capital gains unless holdover is claimed jointly. The change hits owners who reinvested rather than cashed out. The bill comes from the business they built.
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Eugen Neagu
Director at N2 Asset Management Limited
HNV investors could be easily blindsided by noise around changes in taxation policy, and miss what is important - that stock markets are highly valued.

History teaches us that every technological revolution leads to a bubble. It happened with railways in 1840, for the automotive industry and banks in 1929, to the Asian Tigers in 1997 due to personal computers, with dot.com in 2000, and again due to banks and financials in 2007.

AI is a great technology and it will do a lot of good things for the humanity. Every company is excited and wants to invest to remain in the game. Companies borrow, investors buy shares either through IPOs or the secondary markets, without looking at fundamentals. In the end companies overinvest, the revenue and the profits take longer to appear, investors loose patience and stock prices drop 50% - 80%.

I think investors would do better if they their check portfolios, take profits, and pay CGT at 24%, than worry about something they cannot control.