Sarah Crane

Sarah is a legal executive associate within the Probate team at Thomson Snell & Passmore.

Sarah helps clients with all aspects of probate and estate administration work to include inheritance tax reporting, grant applications, deeds of variation and intestacies.

Sarah has a particular interest and experience in assisting clients with estates with a foreign element such as the deceased being non-domiciled or when an estate includes assets abroad. Sarah often works and is instructed by lawyers abroad to deal with an English element of an estate.

Sarah always aims to work closely with her clients and to work with them proactively to deal with the estate administration as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.

Applications for grants of representation – to include when the deceased left a Will or if they died intestate
Applications for a grant of representation in England & Wales when a deceased died non-domiciled
Inheritance tax reporting for estates – to include estates with trust elements, reportable lifetime gifting and foreign assets
Domicile enquiries with HMRC
Double taxation and unilateral relief claims
Deeds of variation.

Sarah recently acted for an estate for a non-domiciled individual

And a domicile enquiry was launched by HMRC. Sarah successfully argued that the deceased was non-UK domiciled saving over £3,000,000 of Inheritance Tax

Sarah has acted for a number of estates

Where assets were taxed in two jurisdictions and has successfully claimed double taxation and unilateral relief.

Sarah has also been acting for the executors dealing with the administration of a contentious estate with 17 tenanted properties.

Sarah successfully managed to obtain a limited grant of representation allowing the executors to take proactive steps in the best interests of the estate whilst the contentious proceedings were dealt with.

Achievements & other appointments

Sarah was shortlisted for Junior Lawyer of the Year 2023 at Kent Junior Lawyer Law Society.

Probate Provider of the Year S - Thomson Snell & Passmore

Education

Sarah qualified as a chartered legal executive in September 2018 having worked previously as a legal assistant in the team since October 2015.

Sarah has completed the STEP Diploma for Trusts and Estates with distinction.

Sarah has also completed STEP’s certificate in Cross Border Estates again with distinction.

Cannot begin to express how grateful we are for the outstanding support and care we received from Sarah Crane. We had an extremely difficult Inheritance/probate application spanning over a number of years, as my Aunt passed away domiciled in another country. It was extremely complicated due to the number of challenging links with the country. However, because of her expertise, Sarah was able to deal with these challenges professionally and efficiently, finding effective solutions to every difficult situation that emerged. She has a real ability to identify and resolve problems by simplifying the issue and explaining the best solution that makes it easy for non-legal people to easily understand. I will be forever grateful for the support, advice and guidance Sarah has provided throughout this process, and then delivering a successful outcome. Throughout this long process, Sarah has continuously kept us informed of progress, without have to chase for updates. She always remained professional, thorough and persistent in reaching an outcome for us, as her clients. Thank you Sarah, you have been an absolute pleasure to work with, we were incredibly fortunate to find you.

Legal Executive Senior Associate, Probate

Specialisms & expertise

Examples of work