·         A trustee can be:

o   a company;

o   a public trustee; or

o   one or more individuals.

·         The choice of trustee will usually depend on the purpose of your trust. It may be appropriate to appoint a family member as trustee if the estate is relatively uncomplicated or if the trust is intended to support beneficiaries after your death.

·         If you are establishing a trust in order to carry on a business you may wish to appoint a trustee with business and investment expertise such as a company. Where a company is appointed as trustee the directors of the company will manage the day-to-day administration of the trust.

• For inter-vivos (living) family trusts many people choose to appoint themselves as trustee. It is important to understand that while you still hold the legal title for trust property personally, the property must subsequently be managed in the best interests of the beneficiaries and no longer for your own purposes.
• In either case utilising the services of a professional trustee or lawyer can take a lot of the difficulty and complexity out of managing more complex trusts. Our free Find a Lawyer directory provides contact details for lawyers who may suit your needs.
• Trustees can be appointed by the trust deed, by law or by the courts. When a trustee is appointed by the trust deed they are referred to as original trustees. The trust deed will commonly include rules regarding the circumstances and manner in which a trustee is to be appointed.
• In the absence of a power of appointment in the trust deed all Australian states and territories have statutory provisions governing the appointment of a trustee. Courts also have the power to appoint, remove or replace a trustee if it would be in the interests of the beneficiaries or advance the purposes of the trust.
• It is prudent to consider how the role of trustee is to be managed into the future. Many people choose to nominate an appointer in the trust instrument. An appointer has the power to remove and appoint trustees for example when the trustee:
  • dies;
  • is incapacitated;
  • becomes bankrupt; or
  • is a company that has been wound up.
• A beneficiary or beneficiaries will generally be:
  • an individual;
  • a group or class of individuals; or
  • an organisation.
• In the case of a trust set up for a charity the beneficiary might also be a charitable object or charitable purpose.
• There are no limits on how many beneficiaries you can appoint. You may wish to consider the different outcomes of discretionary and fixed trusts particularly when considering the nomination of multiple beneficiaries:
  • if you decide to establish a fixed trust then each beneficiary will receive a set amount of the trust property or income; or
  • if you establish a discretionary trust you must bear in mind that the trustee is not obliged to distribute trust property to all beneficiaries or in set proportions.

·         A trustee can be appointed as a beneficiary but must not be the only beneficiary.