Trust Management

Ongoing Trust Administration

We provide expert trust services for the life of your Trust to ensure that:

Accurate records are kept;
All tax and other legal requirements are met;
Trust documents are kept safe; and,
You are kept up to date on any law changes that could affect your Trust.

Trust Administration Requirements

Good trust administration and record keeping is essential to ensure the Trust remains valid.

The good governance of a trust requires the following at a minimum:

1. All trustee decisions recorded by way of a written trustee resolution. The trust minute book should provide an account of the administration of the trust including all assets acquired and sold, all liabilities entered into and all distributions made to beneficiaries. The minute book must be maintained for the lifetime of the trust.

2. Annual trustee meetings. If this is not possible each year the trustees should record in a resolution that there has been a review of the trust’s investment strategies and assets, approval of the trust financial statements, approving either that the trust income is distributed to the beneficiaries or accumulated and any other matters that are relevant to the trust management.

Trustee Duties

In addition, the above ensures that the Trustees can show that they have meet their Trustee Duties. This is because the trustees are the legal owners of the trust assets and are responsible for the administration of the trust.

If a loss to the trust results from a trustee’s failure to adhere to these duties the trustee may be personally liable to make good the loss to the trust.

For example, if the trustees, contrary to the terms of the trust deed, use a trust property as security for borrowing to a party unrelated to the trust, and subsequently the security is called upon and the trust property is lost, the trustees could personally be liable to repay the value of the property back to the trust.

Registered Office

If you are using our office as your registered office or if we are a professional Trustee of your Trust, then the Companies registrar requires the following to be stored at the registered office:

1. Constitution of the company (if you have one);
2. Minutes of all meetings and resolutions of shareholders;
3. Share register and the register of Director’s interests;
4. Minutes of all meetings and resolutions of directors and directors committees;
5. Full names and addresses of the current directors;
6. All written communications to all shareholders, including annual reports;
7. Copies of all financial statements;
8. Accounting records for the current accounting period, and
9. The share register.