Creation and Administration of Trusts
Trusts have long been a feature of succession planning, providing a vehicle to carefully manage the succession of your assets. Our expert solicitors have considerable experience when it comes to setting up and administering trusts and can act as professional trustees if required.
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How can a trust help me?
A well administered, correctly structured trust can provide a number of advantages, for example, protecting family assets or vulnerable beneficiaries, deferring children’s inheritance until a specified age, allowing you or your chosen trustees to control the distribution of assets over time, structuring the succession of your assets in a tax efficient way and/or making charitable donations.
Trusts are governed by complex tax regime and navigating this isn’t always easy, so our advisers will work with you and your other professional advisors to ensure the inheritance tax, capital gains tax and income tax implications are explained in plain, simple terms.
Whatever your circumstances and motivations, our private client solicitors will consider the range of options carefully and ensure that the right structure is put in place to meet your needs.
Our experience
Our expert knowledge of the complex and ever-changing legal and tax landscape governing trusts, combined with our approach to bespoke and client focussed solutions, enables us to advise on all aspects of the creation of trusts, the ongoing administration and ultimately, once the trusts’ purposes have been served, the winding up of settlements.
Our experience also extends to the creation and management of offshore trusts and the UK tax implications for those creating the trusts, the trustees and beneficiaries.
We also have a large dedicated trust management team who can assist with all aspects of trust compliance, including administering a significant number of trusts in house, liaising with investment managers reporting to HM Revenue & Customs and preparing trust accounts. In short, we aim to ensure that trustees are fully compliant and satisfy their trustee duties.
In particular, we can help individuals and trustees to:
- Consider the use of trusts in the context of their wider succession and tax planning strategy
- Create new trusts and prepare detailed letters of guidance to the trustees
- Undertake a full review of ongoing and existing trusts and make appropriate recommendations
- Administer the trust by acting as a professional trustee via our Trust Corporation
- Appoint and retire trustees, including advice on indemnities
- Deal with any trust dispute including issues with fellow trustees or beneficiaries
- Amend the terms of any existing trusts, including dealing with the Variation of Trust claims
- Understand the role and duties of a trustees
- Ensure the trust is managed in a tax efficient manner
- Bring the trust to an end
- Consider the best means of providing for the trust beneficiaries, including the distribution or investment of trust assets and income and the making of loans, and ensuring those decisions are correctly recorded.
Services from our Private Client team
Our Private Wealth sector
For clients who have built a significant assets base, they may face a complex legal and tax landscape. Our experts from across our legal services are on hand to provide specialist legal guidance and support to help individuals, their families, trustees and family offices.
Legal updates and thought leadership
Client Story
14 September 2023
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Company shares passed on through discretionary trust
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Client Story
14 April 2023
2 minute read
