One solution is to go ahead and register it, as long as registration does not obligate the trust to file income tax returns. Unless the real estate is income property, it would have no income anyway. Our trust writer can guide you in what pages can be included in the registration, and which pages should be kept private. And, only register the trust that has real esate property. It may be helpful to acquire additional NLTs for other assets such as a business, investments, personal holdings, etc. One would register only the trust that owns real estate. If so, one wouldn’t register the trust(s) that have other types of assets that don’t need to be publicly recorded.
Another solution would be to create a statutory company, like the UK equivalent of an LLC, and let that be registered and hold the property – – with the majority of its assets of the statutory entity being held in the background by the private trust that is not registered anywhere.
It would be beneficial for each client to do their own research. UK legislation regarding registration and possible taxation of all Express Trusts has recently changed. Any time trustees are considering government registering or recording of a trust’s existence, in order to perfect the public recording of trust real estate ownership, there are taxation, annual reporting, and public exposure of beneficiaries issues. Perhaps in these situations it is best to work with other entities owning the real estate, and either layering trusts, or using corporations, or LLCs for holding real estate legal title and the trust having certificates, or stocks, or membership in the other entity.
