I might be giving away my age if I tell you that as I typed that headline, the Europe hit of 1986 immediately comes into my head! We have been talking and writing about this for what seems like an eternity, however it would be remiss of us not to mention that the deadline for non-tax paying trusts to register is rapidly approaching.

By 1st September 2022, most trusts need to register; some main exceptions are:

• Trusts holding pure life policies, whilst the life assured is alive.
• Trusts holding proceeds of a life policy following the death of a life assured, provided the benefits are distributed to beneficiaries within two years of the death of the person assured.
• Any trusts that are created in a will, where the testator is still alive.
• Trusts created by a will which only hold assets forming part of the deceased’s estate and are wound up within two years of the deceased’s death

Trusts created in a will of a deceased person to hold assets (e.g. a home) where the surviving spouse has a life interest (e.g. may continue to live in the home) do need to be registered.

A couple of useful tips

If you are accessing the online system as a Lead Trustee, then one of the first questions if answered incorrectly that can you lead you on to the wrong subsequent pages and questions, is that the trust that most of our clients will be registering is an Express Trust; answer this incorrectly, and you can end up in the wrong place in the maze of the HMRC website!

It may not seem logical, however when registering as a Lead Trustee to complete the TRS, you need to register for an Organisation Account.

As we have previously mentioned, unfortunately, the registration of trusts is not something we can do for clients; HMRC do not allow financial planners such as Henwood Court to register as Agents, or Professional Indemnity Insurance also does not permit us to do this work.

Helen Allen CFP™ APP Chartered FCSI FPFS
Chartered Financial Planner
Technical Director