There are legal and other expenses involved when establishing a family trust. The cost will vary depending on the time spent in helping you reach a decision on what is best for you and the need to develop a tailored structure to meet your family’s specific needs.
Generally this cost will include drafting a trust deed, new Wills for you and your partner or spouse, a Letter of Wishes, EPAs and perhaps also a relationship property agreement, or a Deed of Delegation and Power of Attorney.
If you are transferring your family home or other real estate to your trust, there will be costs for preparation and registration of documents to transfer ownership and redocument any mortgages. For those settlors with a mortgage on the property being transferred, there will be costs to rearrange the loan securities.
You should allow for the time and cost involved with meetings of trustees, accounting and administrative requirements, and possibly gifting documents. If your trust is to receive income and pay expenses, a separate bank account must be opened. Failure to do this might be seen as evidence that the trust is a sham or alter ego, and/or involve unnecessary accounting costs separating personal transactions from trust transactions.
As each trust has different requirements, your lawyer is the best person to give you a cost estimate to establish your family trust, to transfer the assets to it and for the annual cost to run your trust.
For more information please contact Tina McLennan