Lawyer warns on trap with trust deed updates
With many SMSF trustees requiring changes to their trust deed following the reforms to super, an industry lawyer has stressed the importance of reviewing the history of trust deeds.
Cooper Grace Ward Lawyer partner Clinton Jackson says many deed providers update their deeds without reviewing them to make sure they’re actually updating it based on the current valid rules of the fund.
“There are a lot of deeds out there that have a bad history in the sense that there has been an error made along the way in terms of updating the deed or changing the trustees,” Mr Jackson said.
“If you’re replacing the deed, the only way you can make sure that those rules are valid and give you all the flexibility that you are trying to achieve with the new rules is to make sure that history is clean.”
If the history is not clean, any issues will need to be addressed, “otherwise the update to the trust deed is not worth the paper it’s written on”.
Miranda Brownlee
Miranda Brownlee is the deputy editor of SMSF Adviser, which is the leading source of news, strategy and educational content for professionals working in the SMSF sector.
Since joining the team in 2014, Miranda has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest superannuation stories in Australia, and has reported extensively on technical strategy and legislative updates.
Miranda also has broad business and financial services reporting experience, having written for titles including Investor Daily, ifa and Accountants Daily.
