Amanda Simmonds

Qualifying as a solicitor in 1988, Amanda provides legal advice in respect of all aspects of Private Client work including drafting Wills, Trusts and their related documents, lasting powers of attorney, Court of Protection applications, administering trusts and estates and giving personal tax planning advice. Amanda is a Chartered Tax Adviser and a member of STEP and specialises in complex trust and trustee duty issues, cross border work (i.e. offshore trusts and cases whether there is an international connection) and advising families where a substantial part of their wealth is in a family owned business. Amanda leads Lupton Fawcett’s Business Families advisory team.

From January 2016, Amanda has been one of ten UK practitioners who sit on STEP’s international Council and from 1st January 2020, Amanda has been elected as one of STEP’s 8 Board Directors, which is STEP’s highest level of governance. The Board sets STEPs worldwide strategy. On 1st January 2021, Amanda was appointed Deputy Worldwide Chair of STEP and is one of the Board members reviewing Diverity and Inclusion within STEP.

Amanda is Deputy Chair of STEP’s Professional Standards Committee and has been a member of the STEP Yorkshire Branch Committee for 15 years, having served as Chairman of the STEP Yorkshire Branch for 4 years until June 2014. From September 2013 to the end of 2017, Amanda was co opted on to STEP’s Business Families Special Interest Group Steering Committee and still organises seminar events on behalf of the SIG in the North of England. In 2020, Amanda led STEP’s working group which produced STEP’s guidance on the video witnessing of Wills and is currently leading the team reviewing STEP’s Standard and Special Provisions for Wills and Trusts.

Amanda is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation’s Private Client (UK) and Private Client (International) technical subcommittees, in a volunteer capacity, and was part of the CIOT team which made representations to HMRC during the consultations on changes to the taxation of trusts for vulnerable beneficiaries and on the requirement to notify HMRC of offshore structures and to the OTS on the recent CGT reviews.

Amanda contributed to an original chapter in Finance and Law for the Older Client and regularly sits on the panel of experts to help judge her peers in the Annual STEP Private Client Awards.

Professional Societies

• Law Society
• Chartered Institute of Taxation
• STEP

Specialisms

• Trusts and international wills
• Personal tax planning, offshore trusts and non-domiciliaries
• Advising business families on succession planning

When not at work

Amanda likes to travel. The Himalayas and South America are her favourite places.  She also loves to go to the theatre, enjoys cookery, gardening and walking her dog in the Dales and in the Lake District at the weekend.