Simon Lindley Keswick & Ors v The Commissioners for HMRC

Facts

Mr Simon Keswick and the corporate trustees of several family trusts appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) against HMRC decisions resting on the view that Mr Keswick was domiciled in England and Wales. The Personal Tax Appeals challenged closure notices for seven tax years from 2016-17 to 2023-24, excluding 2017-18. The Bermuda Trust Appeal and the Guernsey Trust Appeals challenged notices of determination that Mr Keswick was domiciled in England and Wales when he settled the Bairns Trust No.1 in 1968 and five Guernsey trusts between 1977 and 1996. A further appeal, the HK Trust Appeal, concerned a trust settled by his brother, Sir Henry Keswick. Determining these appeals would require evidence on Mr Keswick's domicile, including whether his father had acquired a domicile of choice in England and Wales before May 1963. Separately, on 16 December 2025, Mr Keswick and the Guernsey trustee sought permission to bring judicial review proceedings to quash the Guernsey determinations. They argued that HMRC's representations over many years had given rise to a legitimate expectation. HMRC opposed permission, and when this hearing took place no decision had been made on it. Mr Keswick applied for joinder, for allocation to the complex category, for a stay of the appeals behind the judicial review and, in the alternative, for the appeals and the judicial review to be heard together by a single High Court judge. HMRC consented to the first two applications and opposed the others.