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Ben Keith, co-founder of IHR Advisors and a barrister at 5 St Andrew’s Hill, has written “The Price of UK Uncertainty” for the Autumn 2026 issue of Family Office Magazine. The article, on page 45, looks at why high-net-worth families weighing a move to London are being asked to make commitments measured in decades under UK tax and immigration rules that offer far shorter periods of certainty. Some, he notes, are choosing Milan or Cyprus instead.
The UK no longer sells residence for money. There has been no investor visa since Tier 1 Investor closed in 2022. An entrepreneur with an endorsed business can apply under Innovator Founder and may reach settlement in three years, and Global Talent covers leaders in academia, the arts and digital technology. Every other family member needs a route of their own, usually through employment or family.
The settlement rules are changing too. The government’s proposed Earned Settlement model starts from a ten-year baseline for many migrants, with shorter periods for those making greater economic or social contributions. The consultation closed in February after some 200,000 responses, and the Home Secretary has confirmed that the changes will apply to people already on routes to settlement. A family can start on one set of terms and find them changed before it reaches the end.
Tax creates a different mismatch. The foreign income and gains (FIG) regime introduced in April 2025 lets a qualifying new resident, after ten consecutive tax years of non-UK residence, claim relief on eligible foreign income and gains for the first four years and bring them into Britain without the old remittance charge. Four years is a short time in the life of a family office.
Year four is only the first date that matters. From the fifth year, a UK resident will generally be taxed on worldwide income and gains as they arise. A person resident for at least ten of the previous twenty tax years becomes a long-term UK resident, which can bring overseas assets within UK inheritance tax, and that exposure can last between three and ten tax years after the family leaves. Offshore trusts are affected too. A trust set up years before the move, on the footing that its foreign assets would stay outside inheritance tax, can produce a different result because the settlor stayed longer than planned.
Ben’s advice is to price the whole commitment at the start, modelling the family’s position at four, ten and twenty years. The model should cover immigration status, worldwide tax, inheritance tax, trusts, business ownership and succession, and the review dates are already set by the rules. A second jurisdiction, through residence rights or a genuine base elsewhere, can leave room to respond when the rules or the family’s circumstances change.
None of this means London has lost its appeal. Its courts are trusted by families whose assets span several jurisdictions, and for families from countries where political institutions or property rights are less predictable, that counts for a great deal. As Ben writes, ‘Much of my work involves people whose home state has turned on them, through a fabricated prosecution, an asset seizure or an INTERPOL Red Notice, for whom settlement and eventually citizenship are a form of protection.’
For those clients, a change to the settlement rules halfway through can leave them exposed to the state they left. Families will pay a high price for London if they know what it is. The trouble starts when the terms keep changing.
We advise internationally mobile families and individuals on UK immigration routes and settlement, working alongside their tax and trust advisers. Where the family’s home state is hostile, we also act on what follows: INTERPOL Red Notices and Diffusions, extradition requests, sanctions and politically motivated prosecutions. These are better dealt with before a move. A Red Notice that surfaces after arrival can hold up a visa application or close a bank account.
We are grateful to Family Office Magazine for publishing the article, which can be read in full in the Autumn 2026 issue (page 45).
If your family is planning a move to the UK, or is being pursued by its home state, contact us in confidence.
If you would like to speak with us about our areas of practice or anything else please contact us via the form linked below.
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Ben Keith on INTERPOL Red Notices, Extradition and Ukraine: Seminar Q&A
Deportation by Airline: The Cancelled Passport and INTERPOL’s SLTD Database