Complex inheritance tax

[Dingdong1]

First post .
Posting on behalf of parents .
A friend of my parents who is elderly and in poor health has named my parents as sole beneficiary on his will .
He has a fairly large estate .
It gets complex in that his brother died last year in New Jersey USA.
His brother died intestate has no children ,wife etc and his brother is in line for the money .
The amount is large in the area of 3 million n pounds .
He does not want this money to go to his estate as he is aware this will incur large inheritance tax bill .
He wants my parents to receive the money .i have heard of a deal of variation were the money is bypassed but I don’t know how that works when the money comes from outside the uk namely USA
Can anyone advise or offer any suggestions
Regards

[Dingdong1]

First post .
Posting on behalf of parents .
A friend of my parents who is elderly and in poor health has named my parents as sole beneficiary on his will .
He has a fairly large estate .
It gets complex in that his brother died last year in New Jersey USA.
His brother died intestate has no children ,wife etc and his brother is in line for the money .
The amount is large in the area of 3 million n pounds .
He does not want this money to go to his estate as he is aware this will incur large inheritance tax bill .
He wants my parents to receive the money .i have heard of a deal of variation were the money is bypassed but I don’t know how that works when the money comes from outside the uk namely USA
Can anyone advise or offer any suggestions
Regards

[AGoodman]

Yes, a deed of variation.

He would need UK advice to prepare it and US advice on any US effects, particularly if/while the assets are in the US.

For this sum of money, you need to go straight to proper advisers. Presumably there will be a US adviser dealing with the US estate .

[DavidTreitel]

A deed of variation has no effect for US purposes. The key question here is whether brother was considered domiciled within the United Kingdom. What do the client's US and UK lawyers advise?