Overview
The management, preservation, and generational transfer of substantial family wealth require a highly sophisticated blend of strict asset protection strategies and deep interpersonal discretion. High-net-worth individuals, multi-generational business families, and estate executors face severe exposure from probate delays, tax liabilities, and contentious inheritance disputes that can fracture family units and dismantle active business empires.
Developing a resilient succession framework involves shielding wealth from third-party liabilities, establishing robust governance structures for family businesses, and navigating complex probate court systems to ensure seamless continuity of the family legacy.
- Asset Preservation: The strategic implementation of discretionary trusts, offshore holding structures, and airtight pre-nuptial or post-nuptial agreements designed to insulate family wealth from commercial claims and long probate delays.
- Complex Estates: The comprehensive legal administration, structural partitioning, and valuation of vast, multi-asset portfolios comprising active private companies, massive real estate holdings, and diverse financial investments.
- Cross-Border Estates: Managing estate planning, international probate, and asset distribution for families whose properties, business entities, or beneficiaries reside across multiple distinct tax and legal jurisdictions.
Select Experience
We advise high-net-worth individuals and families on complex succession disputes, estate administration, asset preservation, and intergenerational wealth transition matters, including disputes involving cross-border assets and multi-jurisdictional estates.
- Secured a Grant of Letters of Administration Intestate for our Client and three others, despite multiple opposing applications. Our client, a grandchild of a former president, now co-represents his late father’s Estate, which holds a 20% stake worth USD 660 million (KES 85 billion) in an overall Estate valued at USD 3.3 billion (KES 430 billion). The Estate spans multiple jurisdictions, including Australia, the UK, the US, Malawi, and South Africa.
- Recovered over USD 1.1 million (KES 140 million) for the beneficiaries of an Estate by successfully removing and replacing an administrator who had unlawfully sold a valuable Estate property and failed to account for or distribute the sale proceeds to them.
- Secured over USD 968,625 (KES 125 million) for an EU and UK‑based family by successfully defeating attempts by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as well as a co‑owner, to block the sale of their late mother’s interest in a valuable property. Demonstrated that although the property held historical significance, it did not meet the legal threshold of a National Monument requiring government protection, thereby clearing the way for the lawful sale in compliance with a judgment to this effect.
- Achieved recognition of a client as a beneficiary of a former vice president’s Estate valued at over USD 1 million (KES 130 million), leading to his appointment as Co-Administrator and securing an equal share in the distribution.
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