What is a trust corporation?
A trust corporation is an independently owned corporation that can act as a fiduciary or a trustee. This means that the corporation can administer financial assets that are held within a trust on behalf of others. Trust corporations can be named as an executor in a will which gives them the responsibility of administering the estate of a deceased person as well as settling any debts and paying inheritance tax.
At B P Collins, we act as a trust corporation for many of our clients, ensuring their estates are administered correctly.
B P Collins Trust Corporation
Our partners are also the directors of B P Collins Trust Corporation, which enables them to carry out trust business or act as trustees, executors, deputies, attorneys or nominees. The major advantage of working with B P Collins Trust Corporation is that we can take on the burden of complex legal work, ensure matters are dealt with by a competent, unbiased person and ensure that all parties are kept up to date at all times.
Trustees
When creating a trust you may immediately think of family members including yourself to be trustees. However, family and friends are not always willing or appropriate people to administer a family trust.
They may not always be impartial or as independent as they should be, especially when considering who should benefit and when. Or, as a creator of the trust, you may not wish to become involved in family politics or relationships and in some circumstances, it may not be appropriate for the beneficiaries to become aware of the trust’s existence at a particular moment in time.
Professional Trustee
By appointing The B P Collins Trust Corporation as a Professional Trustee, either solely or jointly with yourself or other members of your family, you can be assured that your trust will be administered correctly.
Trust administration
The administration of trusts is becoming more and more complex with legislation dictating compliance issues and imposing duties and responsibilities on trustees. The Corporation utilises our in-house trust team to deal with the day to day administration, which has the specialist skills and knowledge required. Using The B P Collins Trust Corporation as your trustee avoids the difficulties of dealing with members of the family if a decision is not to their liking. It also ensures a continuing entity in terms of the trusteeship.
The B P Collins Trust Corporation is not affected by individuals dying or leaving their employment here, as it is a separate entity and is also able to act solely as a Trustee.
The Corporation will act impartially and independently offering advice to the family as a whole and ensuring the best interests of all beneficiaries are considered.
Trusteeship
Being appointed a trustee is a role which entails a serious duty of care to the trust beneficiaries and places a real responsibility on an individual to ensure they fulfil this role.
A trustee’s responsibility will range from seeking the right financial advice; to deciding where investments are to be made (including the type of shares); to issues such as dividend payments and capital distributions; to ensuring annual trustee meetings are held and making sure there is documentary evidence to support any decisions which are taken. This can be especially taxing where responsibility is taken for the development of a family business, which is being passed on through the family.
Personal liability
Failure to fulfil these roles properly can expose trustees to personal liability. With more valuable trusts being set up, increasingly clients are using our Trust corporation and administration service to avoid the risk of personal liability.
The B P Collins trust team offers efficient and expert handling of your trusts and our dedicated trust administration service ensures that trustees are aware of their responsibilities and that paperwork is dealt with quickly and efficiently.
Our dedicated trust administrator offers support and guidance to help trustees comply with the duties and responsibilities demanded of them, most particularly by the Trustee Act 2000.
Administration service
Our administration service can include the interpretation and review of the terms of any trust and provide advice and support documentation on any decision making processes that may arise. We can assist with the preparation of agendas for trustees’ meetings and production of subsequent minutes with follow-up actions.
We offer proactive advice on when to document a decision and the preparation of appropriate resolutions as well as support concerning key dates arising, for example, ten year anniversaries or beneficiaries reaching adulthood.
The team is also happy to review investment valuations and comment on asset allocation and performance comparisons with financial indices.
Get in touch
For further information or advice please call 01753 889995 or email enquiries@bpcollins.co.uk.
