Trust & Foundation Services

A trust is a legal arrangement where a trustee holds and manages assets for the benefit of beneficiaries. The trustee is the legal owner of the assets and must act in the beneficiaries’ best interests under the terms of the trust deed. This separation of legal and beneficial ownership is what gives trusts their asset protection and estate planning advantages.

The most common is the discretionary (family) trust, where the trustee decides how to distribute income among beneficiaries each year. Others include unit trusts (with fixed entitlements), hybrid trusts, fixed trusts, and testamentary trusts (created through a will). The right type depends on your goals, and we help you choose.

Many trusts use a corporate trustee, which is a company set up to act as trustee. A corporate trustee offers perpetual existence, limited liability, and easier continuity, since you can change the company’s directors and shareholders without changing the legal owner of the trust’s assets. We can establish a corporate trustee as part of the engagement.

Australia does not have the private foundation structure found in some other countries. Structured philanthropy here is usually carried out through ancillary funds (private or public) and charitable trusts, which are deductible gift recipients regulated by the ATO and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. We establish these in conjunction with expert legal advice.

No. We establish and structure trusts, and the trustee is typically a corporate trustee company we help you set up, or another trustee you choose. We are not a licensed trustee company that holds your assets, and any financial product or investment advice is provided by licensed advisers, including those in our network.

Yes. Working with expert legal advice, we can establish a private or public ancillary fund, register it with the ACNC, and apply for the necessary tax concessions, then handle ongoing management and regulatory reporting. These funds are subject to minimum annual distribution requirements, and the rates and rules are currently under reform, so we confirm the current settings as part of the engagement.