Isabel Paintin

Practice Areas

Isabel is a partner in the private client team.

Isabel advises high net worth individuals, family trusts and philanthropic institutions on succession and estate planning, trust management, collection and ownership of luxury assets (especially art) and charitable giving.

Isabel advises predominantly UK-domiciled individuals (often with multi-jurisdictional assets) on all aspects of succession and estate planning, providing tax efficient solutions for handing on wealth. This includes everything from will drafting to drawing up multi-generational succession strategies. She also has experience advising cultural institutions on the terms of lifetime promises made by donors in relation to proposed gifts under their wills.

Trust administration and management are at the core of Isabel’s private family trust practice. She advises trustees on their duties, how to balance different beneficiaries’ interests and manage varied trust assets from investment portfolios to landed estates and valuable chattels, as well as on legal and regulatory compliance.

Isabel has a particular expertise in art transactions, negotiating the sale, purchase and loan of artworks on behalf of collectors and dealers. She advises both owners of art collections of national importance which have been in the family for generations and collectors who are rapidly building their collections. She is sensitive to the different legal issues which can arise in relation to both historic and contemporary artworks.

She also has considerable experience of the heritage taxation regimes, including offers in lieu of tax, conditional exemption and the Cultural Gifts Scheme. Isabel advises on the export regime for cultural goods, guiding clients through the licence application and export stop processes.

Charitable giving is often a key element of family wealth management and estate planning. Isabel frequently advises individuals on structuring both lifetime and post-death philanthropy whether by creating new charitable structures or using donor advised funds. She is familiar with setting up single-founder charities, as well as foundations for artists to preserve their work and protect their legacies.

Professional Memberships

Isabel is a member of the Professional Advisors to the International Art Market (PAIAM). She lectures for the Institute of Art & Law and teaches on the Art, Business and Law LLM at Queen Mary University of London.

Publications

The Art of Connoisseurship through Judicial Eyes: The Law of Negligence and Fine Art Attribution, Art, Antiquity and Law XX(2), July 2015, pp.101-23

The Cultural Gifts Scheme: A Heritage Tax Break for the Living, Farrer & Co Landed Estates Newsletter, Summer 2017