Handling Your Independent Professional Trustee
March 20th, 2010 Filed under: ab trust,Executor Fees,sample wills,Trusts attorney — Estate Planning Author
Independent professional Trustees are must-haves in setting up a Trust. Let this article guide you on how to handle independent Trustees and let you be oriented of your power over them.
In recent cases involving trusts, both in high court and in court of appeals, the judgments are in the position supporting Trusts with independent professional Trustees. Having a lawyer or an accountant as your independent Trustee creates an impression of validity and robustness.
These independent Trustees will have voting power on decisions and will handle the minutes of the meetings and activities of the Trust. With their professional guidance, this component is indeed a powerful to making the Trust strong enough against any attacks on it.
In the Trust, you basically the full control of the assets inside the structure. You also hold the power of appointment with the independent Trustee. Hence, you, as the Settlor, hold the power to fire these professional Trustees. Furthermore, you have no fear of losing control of the assets in the Trust to any third party.
You have also the control to change the Trustee easily upon your request. This usually happens when you change the professional firm you work with for these services. In case of your death, you can assign the power of appointment of these Trustees, through your Will, to your beneficiaries, thus giving them full over control over the Trust.
GRA is one of the best known professional Trustees in New Zealand. It provides services to over 1500 trusts in the country with daily support such as documentation of transactions in minutes, holding AGMs, jointly holding assets on Trust for the beneficiaries, setting up estate plans, drafting Wills and memorandum of wishes, and even guidance on making investment decisions.
John Rowe is working with Gilligan Rowe & Associates. They are Chartered Accountants and are Specialist Accountants and Experts in property and family trusts.
