Property118 and Cotswold Barristers Rebuttal of Dan Neidle’s Allegations

Kings Counsel has confirmed the correctness of our approach to incorporation.

Why we have only published a holding response to Dan Neidle’s articles (until now!)

Given the extremely damaging nature of Mr Neidle’s article, and the distress it has caused to our existing clients and their trusted advisors, we knew we needed to seek professional help from a specialist solicitors’ firm.

Their advice was to appoint an independent Tier 1 Tax Kings Counsel (and junior barrister), at arms’ length, to conduct a comprehensive review of Mr Neidle’s articles as against our advice and processes in order to assess the correctness of our approach. This included providing, under legal privilege, actual client files, including files that HMRC had reviewed. These files contained evidence of the detailed nature of HMRC’s enquiries, and the complete transparency our clients and their advisers bring to dealings with HMRC. No-one at Property118 or Cotswold Barristers had any influence over the content of the KC’s advice, as it had to remain a process of integrity.

Naturally, that process took a significant amount of time to complete.

Felicity Cullen KC of Devereux Chambers was appointed by our solicitors because she is ranked as Tier 1 Kings Counsel and specialises in this form of tax. She is well known for her ‘robust approach’ to projects of this nature. She has given permission for people with a legitimate reason to see her advice. Felicity took silk in 2008, becoming the first woman Silk in specialist tax chambers. She has been in practice since the mid 1980s, having started life at the tax bar at Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers. In 2012 she became a CEDR Accredited Mediator and has observed several commercial mediations. The Chambers UK Bar Awards shortlisted her as ‘Silk of the Year’ for Tax in 2015.

We have also sent a copy of Felicity’s advice to Mr Neidle along with a request for substantial revisions of his articles. In fairness to him, once he had seen we were going down this path he did ask for us to correct any errors identified by our KC so he could publish amendments.

Next steps

A detailed summary of our KC’s advice is being shared with our existing clients and their professional advisers, including their existing and future mortgage lenders, but only on request and subject to them providing an irrevocable undertaking not to share or publish it without our express written consent.

The above will also apply to Mr Neidle, with the added condition that the only purpose is for him seeing the advice is to fulfil his undertaking to issue corrections of his articles where he is in error.

We remind the reader that not a single instance of any of the detriments predicted in Dan Neidle’s article has ever happened in nearly 8 years of casework on these structures. We estimate 15,000+ personal and corporate tax returns have been filed by the clients who have used the Substantial Incorporation Structure.

Our paramount commitment is to provide outstanding service to our valued clients and meeting the stringent requirements set forth by our clients, their lenders, and HMRC. These entities hold us accountable, and our longstanding track record of ensuring their absolute satisfaction is a testament to our ongoing commitment.

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