VinVende Courtier – 'false' bonded warehouse partnership claims

VinVende Courtier, which appears to be based in Hong Kong, claims to have a partnership with London City Bond, one of the UK's leading bonded warehouses. I was told yesterday by LCB that the claims of a special 'partnership' below are 'false' and 'untrue'. The company does, however,  have an account there.

'Vin Vende Courtier has partnered with London City Bond (“LCB”) as part of  our ongoing goal to maximise the security of clients’ wine investments.

Our aim is to give our clients the maximum comfort ininvesting in wine, for example when you buy a case of wine from Vin Vende Courtier yourproof of purchase will include confirmation of London City Bond holding with unique rotation number, certification of ownership and photoconfirmation of your physical wine with  reference numbers that correspondwith all the above  paper work, this is revolutionary within the marketplace and we believe this  is now the only way wines should be traded.'

I don't know how active VinVende Courtier is as both links for their contact details on the website are broken.

UK Fine Wine Investments: compare and contrast

Extract from company website:

'Professional service that is undoubtedly second to none.

Here at UK Fine Wine Investments we are a brokerage specialising in premier cru (meaning First Growth) wines from the Bordeaux region of France. We pride ourselves in delivering of a congruent, first-classed tailored service to each and every client. Not only do our established, select team of brokers and market analysts work perpetually to ensure our client demands are satisfied, they also go that extra mile to embellish a long-lasting positive relationship.'

From Companies House:

UK FINE WINE INVESTMENTS LTD
TOWER 42
OLD BROAD STREET
LONDON
UNITED KINGDOM
EC2N 1HQ
Company No. 07483335

Status: Active Date of Incorporation: 05/01/2011

'to embellish a long-lasting positive relationship' – less than two months to date.

Inheritance tax: current value

Given the alarming number claims on the websites of companies offering wine investment that profits on wine are tax-free in the UK, the following extract from the August 2010 newsletter from HM Revenue & Customs should provide a cold shower of reality.

'Wine valuation

It has been brought to HMRC’s attention that information in the public domain indicates that for Inheritance Tax purposes wine cellars are valued at the purchase price rather than the value at the date of death. This is incorrect.

Section 160 IHTA1984 states that for Inheritance Tax purposes the value of any property is the price it might reasonably be expected to fetch if sold in the open market at that time.

Therefore it is clear that a wine cellar must be valued at its open market value for Inheritance Tax purposes at the time of the relevant occasion of charge.'

*

It should also be remembered that the notion of 'wasting assets' does not apply for the purposes of inheritance tax.