Services trustees

Services to trustees

The services we provide to trustees are designed to reduce the onerous liability that is part and parcel of this role. Trustees have various statutory duties and common law responsibilities including the need to ensure that the trust is administered correctly, that they act impartially, keep full accounts, pay tax that is due and of course invest trust funds correctly.

The Trustee Act 2000 includes a statutory duty of care which the trustees must adopt when investing trust funds. These include the need for suitability and diversification, taking into account the size of the fund to be invested, the risk profile of the trust and the need to balance the investment between income and capital growth requirements.

To meet the needs of the beneficiaries in exercising their power of investment trustees must obtain proper advice prior to proceeding. ‘Proper advice’ is the advice of a person reasonably believed by the trustees to be appropriately qualified by ability and practical experience of financial matters. Clearly, Croesus Financial Services fall into this category.

Finally, there is a duty to undertake periodic reviews of the investments held to ensure that they are still appropriate and are continuing to fulfil the trusts requirements.

Our services to trustees ensure that half-yearly valuations are provided which detail not just the current valuation of the portfolio but will look at the individual fund within a portfolio, the asset allocation of the portfolio, the geographic split of the portfolio and can also provide a stock overlap report giving details of the top holdings across the whole portfolio. We will also ensure that the whole plan is rebalanced thus ensuring that all beneficiaries to the trust are continually catered for. Trustees who fail to do this do run the risk that they are found in breach of trust. Thebeneficiaries could decide to take legal action against such trusts on a personal basis.

If you would like to see an example of the reports we provide to trustees in helping them with these issues then please contact us.