All Trustees Must Sign when Dealing with Trust Assets
When establishing a family trust that usually owns your family home and some investments, the usual ‘mum and dad’ trust has you and your partner as trustees, together with an independent trustee.
Trusts
When a Trustee Loses Capacity
With New Zealand’s ageing population, more and more people are losing mental capacity as they grow older. When this happens to a trustee of a trust, it can make trust administration difficult or, in some cases, almost impossible.
Signing on Behalf of Trustees
Plan ahead. Trustees sometimes need to sign documents in a hurry. An example is bank mortgage documents which may need to be signed so that the trust can borrow to cover expenditure.
Family Trusts and the Family Protection Act 1955
Under the Family Protection Act 1955 (FPA), parents have a moral duty to provide in their Wills for their children’s maintenance and support.
Running a Family Trust
Make sure your family trust stands up to scrutiny. The Sunday Star Times recently published an article about Do-It-Yourself family trusts and how failure to manage them correctly can put the integrity of a trust at risk.
How is a Trust’s Income Taxed?
Income earned by a trust can be either retained by the trust or it can be distributed to the trust’s beneficiaries.
Bankruptcy and Trusts
The present economic downturn has thrown up the problem of what to do when a settlor and/or a trustee becomes bankrupt. This article looks at possible remedies for both situations.
Loans and Capital Distributions to Beneficiaries
In the last issue of Trust eSpeaking (September 2008), we discussed the scenario that often occurs when trustees provide funds to beneficiaries, for example, to help in the purchase of a house.