Have you got a standard form trust and require advice on what you can do as a trustee? Buss Murton Law can help.

Once upon a time, only the very wealthy had ‘trusts’ and the drafting work was carried out exclusively by solicitors. Times have changed, and often things like ‘discounted gift trusts’ or ‘gift and loan trusts’ and ‘investment bonds’ are sold, and often come with a free at point of use trust documentation from the product provider. Such trusts probably now outnumber bespoke, solicitor drafted trusts, many times over.

However, the product providers always carefully say that the suitability of their free provided trusts is not something they can or will advise upon. They often say that anyone with any concerns, should take their own legal advice as to the suitability of the trust for their needs.

The difficulty here is that generally solicitors have said – we are not going to provide such advice, due to it diminishing the value of their own trust drafting services. That, however, leaves a slew of trusts without access to appropriate advice, and ignores the reality of the modern world of financial products and of clients. The danger here lies with those who have the trusts as trustees/beneficiaries.

We, at Buss Murton Law aim to address the above on a fixed fee basis. Although this article will not include the tailored advice, instead, we aim to outline where our service can assist:

1. Those who are making an investment/ a protection policy and their proposed idea is a trust, and that the provider has already provided a trust. The ‘settlor’ can use this service to ask whether the trust is suitable for their needs and can check if the trust does what he or she thinks it does. This can provide a rounded view of the pros and cons of the arrangement.
2. A trust has been set up and a trustee wishes to retire from being a trustee and may have had thoughts as to appointing another person to act as a trustee in their place.
3. In the case of a trust where a trustee loses mental capacity to make financial decisions which often means the trust is unable to operate at all until the trustee in question recovers or dies. In extreme cases, a Court of Protection order is sought to remove them (the mentally incapacitated trustee) and appoint another in their place. If possible, trustees should always try to retire before they reach that point. Trustees retire by executing a legal document called a deed to that effect that we can draft, and that self-same document can also look to appoint a replacement trustee or trustees.
4. The settlor and the trustees may believe that the trust has done its task for whatever period it was originally conceived to effect. They may want to bring the trust to an end. Whether they can do that is impacted by the taxation implications of taking of that step, and the drafting to make that change. These are all complex matters and each needs to be dealt with before progressing, as mistakes here can be very costly in terms of the triggering of taxation implications, in many cases, if another path had been taken, a lesser taxation effect would have been encountered. We, in conjunction with financial advisors and your own choice of accountants can provide seamless advice in this area, even where the trusts were not created by us, or any other solicitors.

For bespoke advice on this area of Private Client law, please contact Edward Walter on 01892 502 320 or email ewalter@bussmurton.co.uk.