The UK statutory residence test came into effect on 6 April 2013 and for many non-UK residents brings a welcome level of clarification and certainty to the UK rules on residency. However, there is a little known element to the rules that is not so welcome: the rules relating to residency in the event of exceptional circumstances.
What I am talking about is situations when you have to come to the UK, or have to remain in the UK, because of an emergency or other special reason. A UK-based family member may have died and you need to attend to their affairs and comfort other family members; you may have a serious illness or injury and want to have this treated in a UK hospital; or there may be war or unrest in your home country, preventing you from travelling back there safely. Most people in this position would assume that the extra days they spend in the UK would not count as a day of UK residency. Not so. Yes, there is a discount for days spent in the UK for exceptional circumstances but the situations in which this applies are very narrow. None of the three situations outlined above would qualify.
In this article in Private Client Adviser magazine which you can access here, I discuss the exceptional circumstances rules and how they may catch people out unfairly. The article was first published in Private Client Adviser in October 2013 and is reproduced by kind permission (www.privateclientadviser.co.uk).
You can read more on the UK residency rules in our article on the UK statutory residence test which you can access here or you can contact any of our Offshore Team, or your usual Wedlake Bell adviser, for further information.