Helen Calcutt

Helen advises on creating and managing lifetime and will trusts, including personal injury trusts, acting as a professional trustee, guiding lay trustees with duties, tax and compliance, and drafting essential trust documents including resolutions, accounts, and deeds of appointment and retirement.

• Acted as a professional trustee for a client who inherited money from their grandmother and aunt on their deaths. This money was held in two separate trusts for the client, as they struggled with mental, social, and emotional health and the ability to independently manage their finances.
• Appointed as a client’s professional trustee after referral from their financial adviser concerning a settlement payout after a road traffic accident. Client had complex needs and so planning was required to maximise local authority funding.
• Drafted the will for a client shortly before they died of a terminal illness. After the client’s death, acted as co-executor to administer the deceased’s estate alongside their surviving spouse. Also appointed to act as professional trustee under the will trust, as well as subsequently for a separate trust, for the client’s two children.

Helen advises on preparing simple and complex wills, as well as statutory will applications.

• Acted on behalf of a father who had been excluded from his son’s statutory will by the ex-wife and ensured that he was named as a beneficiary.
• Instructed to administer the estates of a wife and husband who had mixed domicile and worldwide assets worth tens of millions.

Helen advises on estates with a cross-border element, Inheritance Tax issues, and securing business, woodland, and agricultural relief.

• Saved an estate £60,000 in Inheritance Tax (IHT) by arguing a CGT rather than IHT liability with the HMRC.
• Successfully obtained agricultural relief on a lifetime gift, saving tens of thousands of pounds in IHT.
• Acted in an estate with assets in England, Canada, Scotland, and Spain and claiming Woodland Relief.
• Acted in an estate with assets in England, Germany, Italy, Australia and Hong Kong.
• Acted as a court-appointed executor after the removal of a professional executor for charitable beneficiaries including those in the US.

Helen advises on deputyships and lasting powers of attorney, acting for vulnerable clients, securing financial stability, and guiding families through complex applications, disputes, and the ongoing management of affairs.

• Acted on making an ex parte application for removal of a deputy and being appointed as an interim deputy.
• Acted as a professional attorney for high-net-worth clients under lasting powers of attorney as well as advising lay clients in their role as attorney.
• Acted as a professional deputy as well as advising lay clients in relation to their own appointment and their duties as deputy.
• Acted as deputy for a disabled individual after the lay deputy’s retirement from the role. When the deputyship was acquired, significant savings and a new budget was required due to the previous unchecked spending and investment regime leaving a small investment portfolio for the client to live off.
• Acted for a client with extreme physical and mental disabilities and therefore unable to manage their own finances. Instruction was given to take over the deputyship and an extensive review was required of the finances as the previous deputy had not considered the cashflow position and affordability of paying large gratuitous care payments on top of privately funded care. Their funds are now set to last until they are 99 years old, whereas it would have previously run out in their 70s.
• Acted for a client who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2015 in a road traffic accident which resulted in permanent cognitive impairment. Appointment of deputyship was obtained as client struggled handling large sums of money. Global capitalised settlement in excess of £17M.

Recommend in The Legal 500 for Court of Protection 2026

Recommended by The Legal 500 for Personal Tax, Trusts and Probate 2025–2026

Top Recommended Probate and Wills Lawyers 2026

Recommended Tax Lawyer in The Spear’s 500 Tax Law Index 2022–2024

Member of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple

Full member of the Society for Trust and Estates Practitioners (STEP)