Wealth Preservation Matters: Meet Philip Carter

As my father was a barrister, I suppose it was almost inevitable that I would end up in the law.

However, while doing my Articles (as training contracts were then known!), I had no idea which area of the law I wanted to go into.  None of the other departments I was placed in appealed to me, until my last month I was offered the chance to work in what was then the Wills, Probate and Trusts section.  Some 35 years later – I am still there, although the department has changed its name a few times over that period and there have been a couple of mergers.

I have always enjoyed dealing with clients and, in particular, their estates as, contrary to popular belief, they are not all identical.  Amongst those estates I have dealt with was the man who did not (apparently) exist until he joined the army and his wife was charged with his murder just as we were about to distribute his estate to her!

There was also the case where we were negotiating with a National Museum regarding some pictures where they believed they held the originals and we only had copies- until they came to compare them. at which point it became immediately clear that the estate held the originals and they only had copies.  The museum quickly decided they needed to purchase those pictures from the estate.

I still deal with most aspects of private client work, including tax planning and some involvement with charities.  Being involved with all the different areas within Wealth Preservation means I get to work with most of the other members of the department and it doesn’t take long to find that colleagues have become firm friends.

When not working, my great passion is steam railways.  I have visited most of those in the UK – well over 100 to-date.

Also, on the railway front, I have a vintage Hornby Dublo model railway layout and collect antique railway postcards and archive railway videos and DVDs.

Although a great armchair sports enthusiast, I am not quite so active on the field of play these days.  I do play cricket on a very occasional basis and in my younger days enjoyed badminton.

I am lucky to have a sizeable garden and this has certainly helped to keep me sane during lockdown.  I have added tulips and roses to a number of the flowerbeds and am keeping my fingers crossed that I might end up with a decent crop of fruit and veg this year.

I do try to attract insects and birds to the garden – the latter with a number of bird feeders, but it does seem to be the squirrels that take most advantage of that.  However, having said that, I did, on one occasion, have 19 pheasants in the garden at the same time!