Amy Lane

Expertise Amy Advises Experience Highlights Career History Testimonials

Partner

Private Client

+44 (0)7715 243659

Expertise

Amy is a Partner in the Private Client team at gunnercooke.  Amy has over ten years’ experience providing traditional estate planning advice.

Her advice includes inheritance and capital gains tax to individuals, families, as well as high-level estate planning advice to next generation professionals, farmers and business owners. She has a particular interest in succession planning for the next generation and clients with an international element to their estate planning having completed the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) Certificate in UK tax for international clients.   She has historically dealt with a number of US/UK cross border estate planning matters, advising on the UK element.

Amy advises on the creation of trusts to utilise them tax efficiently, as well as advising trustees on their fiduciary duties, the administration of trusts and advising beneficiaries on their entitlements.  The advice regarding trusts can often include advice to farmers and land owners about tax efficient ways to maximise their land holding by utilising the reliefs available and considering planning opportunities with their agents and potential developers to maximise wealth for future generations.

Amy also advises on the administration of estates including rearranging estates post-death through a Deed of Variation to maximise the availability of reliefs to an estate.

She is passionate about raising awareness of the importance of estate planning for families created through assisted conception and this being done in a regulated way and not through informal agreements.  She often writes about the topic on LinkedIn with a view to not only raising awareness but redefining social norms and society’s acceptance of families being created through assisted conception.

Amy has been recognised in Legal 500 as ‘personable, empathetic, professional and thoroughly effective’. 

Amy is able to meet with clients at our offices in London and has meeting facilities in Kent and Sussex.  She can also meet clients via Microsoft Teams.

Amy Advises

  • Inheritance Tax planning during lifetime and post-death arrangements such as a Deed of Variation
  • Will structures, particularly for asset protection purposes and succession planning for families, farms and companies
  • Family Investment Companies
  • The use of trusts including creation, administration and termination
  • Declarations of Trusts
  • Assisted conception and estate planning
  • Administering estates, including those with foreign elements and/or agricultural or business assets
  • Powers of attorney for property and finances as well as health and welfare, together with powers of attorney for business owners.

Experience Highlights

  • Advising a farming family on the diversification of the farm with a view to increasing the availability of Agricultural Property Relief (now Agricultural Relief). Advice included looking at the farming operation, which parts would not qualify on death and restructuring with a view to reducing the headline value of their estate for IHT purposes.
  • Advising personal representatives about an estate where the deceased died without leaving a valid will. The estate included a horticultural partnership, of which the deceased’s son was a partner.  The partnership warehoused a number of properties as well as land.  The advice included preparing a deed of variation to make a successful claim for both Agricultural Relief and Business Property Relief (now Business Relief) for the business assets with the remainder of the assets being varied to give his surviving wife a life interest to claim the spouse exemption.  This created a tax saving of approximately £500,000.
  • Providing advice to a US citizen and US resident who had become UK domiciled. Advice included looking at the availability of the spouse exemption by marrying his long-term partner who was UK domiciled and the structure of his estate thereafter.  The advice included liaising with his US attorneys about the various grantor trusts that he created during his lifetime and the interaction between the US tax payable on those trusts on death and his UK estate.
  • Advising trustees of a trust created by a Will where, before the client’s death, she had intended to give her US property to her US resident son but died before doing so. She died without a Will in the US, so the UK executors and trustees were responsible for administering the US estate.  The advice included liaising with a US realtor to ensure the trustees’ responsibilities regarding the safety of the property were met.  Further advice included liaising with a US accountant about the trustees’ reporting obligations in the US and considering the options to ensure the son’s needs were met, whilst avoiding the risk of redirection of the house in the future or affecting his entitlement to state benefits in the US.

Career History

Previous Law firms

  • Amy joined Brachers LLP in Maidstone in September 2014 as a Trainee Solicitor. She remained with the firm on qualification in 2016 (having spent 15 months of her training contract in Private Client) until April 2019.
  • Amy joined Thomson Snell & Passmore LLP in Tunbridge Wells in April 2019, before joining gunnrecooke as a Partner in September 2025.

Memberships

  • Amy is a full member of STEP, holding the diploma in tax and estate planning.
  • Amy is a Contracted Marker for STEP via CLTI.
  • Amy is a Judge for the Probate Industry Awards (2026).
  • Amy is a full member of the Association of Lifetime Lawyers.
  • Amy is a Dementia Friend.
  • Amy has previously sat as Councillor for both Kent Law Society and the Tunbridge Wells & Tonbridge District Law Society (TWTDLS). She was Secretary for the TWTDLS too.

Education

  • University of Sussex
  • University of Law (London)

Other

Amy has historically been shortlisted as one of only six practitioners worldwide for Young Practitioner of the Year at the STEP awards.

Amy was published in STEP in 2025, discussing redefining family and assisted conception through donors, IVF and surrogacy (a topic she is passionate about raising awareness of):- https://journal.step.org/step-journal-issue-1-2025/donations-welcome

Expertise

Back to top

Amy is a Partner in the Private Client team at gunnercooke.  Amy has over ten years’ experience providing traditional estate planning advice.

Her advice includes inheritance and capital gains tax to individuals, families, as well as high-level estate planning advice to next generation professionals, farmers and business owners. She has a particular interest in succession planning for the next generation and clients with an international element to their estate planning having completed the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) Certificate in UK tax for international clients.   She has historically dealt with a number of US/UK cross border estate planning matters, advising on the UK element.

Amy advises on the creation of trusts to utilise them tax efficiently, as well as advising trustees on their fiduciary duties, the administration of trusts and advising beneficiaries on their entitlements.  The advice regarding trusts can often include advice to farmers and land owners about tax efficient ways to maximise their land holding by utilising the reliefs available and considering planning opportunities with their agents and potential developers to maximise wealth for future generations.

Amy also advises on the administration of estates including rearranging estates post-death through a Deed of Variation to maximise the availability of reliefs to an estate.

She is passionate about raising awareness of the importance of estate planning for families created through assisted conception and this being done in a regulated way and not through informal agreements.  She often writes about the topic on LinkedIn with a view to not only raising awareness but redefining social norms and society’s acceptance of families being created through assisted conception.

Amy has been recognised in Legal 500 as ‘personable, empathetic, professional and thoroughly effective’. 

Amy is able to meet with clients at our offices in London and has meeting facilities in Kent and Sussex.  She can also meet clients via Microsoft Teams.

Amy Advises

Back to top
  • Inheritance Tax planning during lifetime and post-death arrangements such as a Deed of Variation
  • Will structures, particularly for asset protection purposes and succession planning for families, farms and companies
  • Family Investment Companies
  • The use of trusts including creation, administration and termination
  • Declarations of Trusts
  • Assisted conception and estate planning
  • Administering estates, including those with foreign elements and/or agricultural or business assets
  • Powers of attorney for property and finances as well as health and welfare, together with powers of attorney for business owners.

Experience Highlights

Back to top
  • Advising a farming family on the diversification of the farm with a view to increasing the availability of Agricultural Property Relief (now Agricultural Relief). Advice included looking at the farming operation, which parts would not qualify on death and restructuring with a view to reducing the headline value of their estate for IHT purposes.
  • Advising personal representatives about an estate where the deceased died without leaving a valid will. The estate included a horticultural partnership, of which the deceased’s son was a partner.  The partnership warehoused a number of properties as well as land.  The advice included preparing a deed of variation to make a successful claim for both Agricultural Relief and Business Property Relief (now Business Relief) for the business assets with the remainder of the assets being varied to give his surviving wife a life interest to claim the spouse exemption.  This created a tax saving of approximately £500,000.
  • Providing advice to a US citizen and US resident who had become UK domiciled. Advice included looking at the availability of the spouse exemption by marrying his long-term partner who was UK domiciled and the structure of his estate thereafter.  The advice included liaising with his US attorneys about the various grantor trusts that he created during his lifetime and the interaction between the US tax payable on those trusts on death and his UK estate.
  • Advising trustees of a trust created by a Will where, before the client’s death, she had intended to give her US property to her US resident son but died before doing so. She died without a Will in the US, so the UK executors and trustees were responsible for administering the US estate.  The advice included liaising with a US realtor to ensure the trustees’ responsibilities regarding the safety of the property were met.  Further advice included liaising with a US accountant about the trustees’ reporting obligations in the US and considering the options to ensure the son’s needs were met, whilst avoiding the risk of redirection of the house in the future or affecting his entitlement to state benefits in the US.

Career History

Back to top

Previous Law firms

  • Amy joined Brachers LLP in Maidstone in September 2014 as a Trainee Solicitor. She remained with the firm on qualification in 2016 (having spent 15 months of her training contract in Private Client) until April 2019.
  • Amy joined Thomson Snell & Passmore LLP in Tunbridge Wells in April 2019, before joining gunnrecooke as a Partner in September 2025.

Memberships

  • Amy is a full member of STEP, holding the diploma in tax and estate planning.
  • Amy is a Contracted Marker for STEP via CLTI.
  • Amy is a Judge for the Probate Industry Awards (2026).
  • Amy is a full member of the Association of Lifetime Lawyers.
  • Amy is a Dementia Friend.
  • Amy has previously sat as Councillor for both Kent Law Society and the Tunbridge Wells & Tonbridge District Law Society (TWTDLS). She was Secretary for the TWTDLS too.

Education

  • University of Sussex
  • University of Law (London)

Other

Amy has historically been shortlisted as one of only six practitioners worldwide for Young Practitioner of the Year at the STEP awards.

Amy was published in STEP in 2025, discussing redefining family and assisted conception through donors, IVF and surrogacy (a topic she is passionate about raising awareness of):- https://journal.step.org/step-journal-issue-1-2025/donations-welcome

Testimonials