Can you take over an existing trust mid-year?

Yes. We pick up from the last filed return, check what is still open, and tell you if anything before that needs correcting. Where something has to be disclosed to HMRC we handle the disclosure rather than leaving it with you.

We think the trust should have been registered years ago. Is that a problem?

It is fixable, and it is one of the more common reasons people get in touch. Late registration is dealt with directly. The sooner it is done the better the position, but it is not a reason to avoid asking.

Do you act for the trust or for the trustees?

For the trustees, who are the people with the obligation and the personal liability. Where there are several trustees we need all of them to agree the engagement, since the responsibility is joint.

What We Do, and What It Costs

Last reviewed 22 August 2026.

One specialism: the tax compliance a trustee or personal representative is personally answerable for. We are not a general practice with a trusts page, and we do not do the planning side.

Everything is a fixed fee, agreed in writing before any work starts. No hourly billing, no charge for asking a question mid-year, and nothing taken until you approve the quote.

Trusts

Trust Registration Service registration, including late registration where a trust should have gone on years ago, and keeping the register current as trustees and beneficiaries change.

The annual SA900, computed at the rates for the kind of trust it actually is, with R185 certificates so beneficiaries can report their share correctly. Trust accounts where the trust deed or the beneficiaries require them.

Relevant property charges: the ten-year anniversary computed before the valuation date rather than after it, and exit charges when assets leave.

Estates

Income tax and capital gains tax through the administration period, the estate's SA900, estate accounts, and the R185s beneficiaries need for their own returns.

Inheritance tax computations and valuation support, and from April 2027 the pension position, which puts the reporting and payment obligation on personal representatives personally.

What Is Outside Our Scope

Probate itself. Applying for a grant or preparing the papers for one is a reserved legal activity and this practice is not authorised for it. The boundary is set out in full, including where to find a firm that is licensed.

Estate planning. Whether to create a trust, how to structure gifts, how to reduce a future inheritance tax bill: that is advice for the living and a different specialism. We work on trusts and estates that already exist.

Investment advice, and any recommendation about what a trust should hold. Trustees have their own duties on investment and we are not the right adviser for them.

How Fees Work

You describe the position through the enquiry form. We come back by email with a fixed price and the date each filing has to be in by. Nothing is charged until you agree the quote, and the fee does not move afterwards because something turned out to take longer.

What drives the price is how much is outstanding rather than the size of the trust. A dormant trust with no income and a clean filing history is at the lower end. An unregistered trust with several years of missed returns and an anniversary charge already passed is at the other, and we will tell you which you are before you commit.

Anti-money-laundering identity checks come first, as at any UK firm.