International, without the improvisation
Business that crosses borders.
Finchley's High Road speaks a dozen languages, and so does its money — owners abroad with companies here, families here with property there, businesses outgrowing one country. The rules that follow money across borders are unforgiving of improvisation. We make them routine.
Setting up in the UK
An overseas business or owner putting down UK roots: company or branch formation, registered office, UK bank introductions, VAT and PAYE registration, and a compliance calendar that runs itself. You get a UK presence that looks — and files — like it has always been here.
Owned from abroad
UK companies with overseas shareholders, UK subsidiaries of foreign groups, and non-resident landlords with UK property. Accounts, Corporation Tax and group reporting on your parent's timetable; the Non-resident Landlord Scheme handled so rent arrives gross, not taxed at source.
Heading outward
UK businesses expanding abroad and individuals arriving in or leaving the UK. Residence tests, the four-year regime for new arrivals, exit timing on disposals, and structures with real substance in every country they touch — disclosed, defensible, and built before the move rather than after it.
The test every structure must pass.
Cross-border work attracts two kinds of adviser: the kind selling secrecy, and the kind building things that last. We are firmly the second. Every arrangement we touch must make commercial sense, have real substance where it claims to be, and survive an HMRC enquiry with its paperwork in order — because the era of the undisclosed offshore anything is over, and the clients who thrive across borders are the boringly compliant ones.
What that looks like in practice: a German group's UK subsidiary getting its accounts in the format the Munich parent expects; a landlord in Dubai receiving Finchley rent gross because the NRL paperwork was done properly; a family relocating to London with their affairs arranged before the plane landed, not untangled after. Distance is a courier problem, not an accounting one — everything we do runs remotely, in plain English, on UK filing deadlines that we put straight into your calendar.
Common questions.
Can an overseas resident own and run a UK limited company?
Yes — there is no UK residence requirement for shareholders or directors. The company needs a UK registered office address, UK filings at Companies House and HMRC, and usually a UK payroll and VAT registration once it trades. We provide the registered office and run the compliance so distance is never the problem.
Should an overseas company open a UK branch or a subsidiary?
A subsidiary is a separate UK company — cleaner liability, familiar to UK banks and customers, its own Corporation Tax. A branch (UK establishment) keeps everything in the parent but still registers and files in the UK. The right answer depends on liability appetite, tax in the home country and how permanent the UK presence is — a structuring question we work through case by case.
What is the Non-resident Landlord Scheme?
UK letting agents (or tenants) must deduct basic-rate tax from rent paid to a landlord living abroad, unless HMRC approves receiving rent gross under the NRL scheme. Approval, the annual UK return, and the interaction with tax where you live are all routine for us — unclaimed gross-payment status is one of the most common things we fix for new non-resident clients.
I'm moving to or from the UK — when should I get advice?
Before you move, not after. UK tax residence is decided by the Statutory Residence Test day counts, and the four-year foreign income and gains regime for new arrivals rewards planning done in advance. Timing a move, a bonus, or a disposal by even a few weeks can change which country taxes it.
Wherever the money lives.
Tell us which borders your business crosses — a first conversation costs nothing and usually saves a structure diagram.