Changes are underway in New Zealand to make trust law clear and accessible. The directors of Diprose Miller act as professional trustees for a number of our client’s trusts, either personally or through our many trustee companies. This is a responsibility we take very seriously.
Last year, a draft Trusts Bill was released for consultation purposes. This draft bill follows several years of the ongoing review of the Law of Trusts. Once submissions on the draft bill have been considered, a Trusts Bill is expected to be released for consultation.
The draft Trusts Bill aims to make trust law clearer and more accessible. As well as proposing to abolish the Perpetuities Act, the draft includes a number of mandatory and default trustee duties. The draft Trusts Bill also introduces the concept of a ’qualifying beneficiary’ (a beneficiary who has a reasonable likelihood of receiving trust property), and introduces rules regarding the provision of trust information to beneficiaries. While the bill is still a draft, we should expect to see changes to trust law in the future.
Independently of the draft Trusts Bill, recent case law (for example, Clayton v Clayton and Erceg v Erceg) has highlighted the need to monitor and review trust deeds and practices to ensure our clients' trusts meet their purpose.
To prepare for these changes, at Diprose Miller we are introducing new Terms of Engagement as a condition of continuing to act as professional trustees of our clients’ trusts. As professional trustees, we will also introduce an annual fee for trust administration services.
During 2017 we will send a letter of engagement to all trusts that we are a professional trustee for.
This letter will fully explain our role and responsibilities, your responsibilities as fellow trustees, our annual fee and what services this annual fee will cover.
Please make sure you read the letter, sign where required and send back to us for our records.
We take our role as professional trustee very seriously. If you have any questions regarding the letter of engagement please contact your accountant directly, we’ll be more than happy to help.
