Creation of trusts

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Perpetuities and accumulations

The rules relating to perpetuities and accumulations stem from the provisions in the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 1964 and from common law. These increasingly archaic rules were becoming troublesome and as long ago as 1989, the Law Commission started consultations on altering them. This culminated in a paper in 1993 identifying defects in the system and a final report in 1998 with a draft bill. This resulted in the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009 (PAA 2009) which gives effect to that report.

PAA 2009 became operable on 6 April 2010. It seeks to modify and simplify the law by making changes both to the rule against perpetuities (also known as the rule against remoteness of vesting) and the rule against excessive accumulations. Practitioners will still have regard to the old rules that continue to apply in certain cases.

See Practice Note: Perpetuities and accumulations.

Creation of trusts—parties, recitals and testatum

Usually the date on which the settlement was made is set out at the beginning of the trust instrument. The date may be important for subsequent time limits and the

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OSCR announces enhanced Record of Removed Persons search functionality for charity trustees

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has announced technical improvements to its Record of Removed Persons search function. The updated system now displays detailed search results—including timestamps and search terms—even when no matches are found. This enhancement is designed to help charity trustees document their due diligence processes by allowing them to capture evidence of eligibility checks via screenshots. The Record of Removed Persons continues to list individuals barred from charity management by the Court of Session.

Private Client weekly highlights—24 July 2025

This week’s edition of Private Client highlights includes: (1) analysis of the draft provisions to be included in Finance Bill 2026 which were published on Legislation Day, 21 July 2025; (2) reforms to the registration requirements of the Trust Registration Service (TRS) as part of the government’s response to the 2024 Money Laundering Regulations consultation; (3) double taxation tiebreakers—the meaning of POEM (Haworth v HMRC); and (4) a monumental Supreme Court decision on matrimonialisation and sharing principle on divorce (Standish v Standish).

Question of the week: W died on 06 April 2025. She was resident in England & Wales at her death and all her assets were situate in England & Wales. In 2018 (ie within seven years of her death) W and her husband H made joint lifetime gifts totalling £600,000 to their three children. At the time of the gifts, they were arguable domiciled in Gibraltar, and the gifts were made from Gibraltar-based assets. H died in 2021 domiciled in Gibraltar. Do the lifetime gifts have to now be brought into account for IHT in W's estate in relation to both her NRB and the transferable NRB from H's estate?

This Q&A considers the implications for inheritance tax (IHT) when a resident passes away. Specifically, it examines the scenario where lifetime gifts were made within seven years of death, and the deceased and their spouse were domiciled in a different jurisdiction at the time of the gifts. It also addresses how these gifts impact the deceased's estate, including the transferable nil rate band (NRB) from the spouse's estate.

Legislation Day: Draft Finance Bill 2026—Private Client analysis

Private Client analysis: On Legislation Day, 21 July 2025, the government published draft provisions to be included in Finance Bill 2026 (FB 2026, also known as Finance Bill 2025–26) together with accompanying explanatory notes and other supporting documents. The government also published consultation responses and made other announcements of interest to Private Client practitioners. This analysis provides an overview of the key Private Client tax provisions together with initial reactions from the market.

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