Readers' forum : American issue

We act for a client who has always been UK resident and who is now in her late 60s. A few years ago she remarried to an American living in New York her first husband having died some years earlier. They now have a flat in New York as well as her house in London valued at about £1m. Other assets possibly total no more than £200 000.

Our client is thinking of applying for a green card to overcome limits on her residency in the US. She travels back and forth across the Atlantic spending lengthy periods in New York with her working husband. Under the provisions of her will she leaves the UK property to her children with a right for her husband to occupy it until his (presumed) later death. There is little likelihood of it otherwise being sold in the future but...