Setting up a trust in Nevada: steps and documents

Before you start: what you decide

If you are working out how to set up a trust in Nevada, five choices shape the answer, and it pays to settle the direction of each with your lawyer before anyone drafts a line. Final answers can wait; a rough lean cannot.

• Who benefits. Name people, or describe a class such as your children and their descendants.
• What goes in. Cash, listed securities, private shares or property held through a company each call for different paperwork.
• Whether a holding company sits beneath the trust. If so, the trustee owns the shares and daily business runs through the company.
• Who holds which role. Beyond the trustee, the instrument may add a trust protector or trust adviser.
• What you keep. Your lawyer explains how much control a settlor can retain without weakening the structure.

Put the five answers in plain words. We turn them into a one-page brief for your lawyer and the trustee, so fewer drafting rounds are needed.

Each feature mentioned here is explained, with its source, on the law page.

Step by step: from enquiry to signed instrument

Signing waits for your lawyer’s review of the instrument, and funding waits for the trustee’s written acceptance of office.

What follows is our own service sequence for setting up a Nevada trust, not an order laid down by statute. Your lawyer confirms any step that the statute fixes.

1. Enquiry. Tell us where you live, what you plan to transfer and who is to benefit.
2. Client acceptance and identity checks. These come first because every later step depends on them. The answer is acceptance or an early no.
3. Structure design. You, your lawyer and we settle on a diagram and a list of roles.
4. Drafting. A Nevada firm drafts the instrument and you review it with your own lawyer.
5. Signing. You and the trustee sign, and the trustee confirms in writing that it has taken office.
6. Funding. Assets pass to the trustee or to a company the trust owns.

One rule shapes the choice of trustee. When the settlor also benefits, NRS 166.015 asks for a Nevada-domiciled individual, or a trust company or bank with an office in the state, as one of the trustees.

We secure that local partner before signing.

Documents the trustee asks for

Almost every file starts with the same core papers, and gathering them first removes the commonest delay.

• A valid passport for each settlor, beneficiary and other controller.
• Proof of address, for instance a recent utility bill or bank statement.
• A short account of where your wealth came from, with papers to back it.
• A description of the assets you plan to transfer, with recent statements.
• Details of every beneficiary, and of the protector if the instrument creates one.
• Company records, if a company is to sit beneath the trust.

Certified copies are often requested and some papers may need translating. Your lawyer can say which forms the trustee takes.

One checklist covers everyone, so the same set of copies reaches your lawyer, the trustee and the bank.

Identity and source-of-funds checks

The trustee carries out checks of its own on top of ours, and it has to be content before it acts.

Source of funds is where the money going into this trust comes from today. Source of wealth is how your wider position was built over the years.

Evidence for both can be sale contracts, payslips, tax returns, dividend statements or company accounts. The trustee reads them to confirm the assets are lawful.

Arrive with the story in order. A clear timeline of how you earned or inherited the assets answers most questions before they are asked.

Not every check ends in a yes. We tell you early if we cannot take a case, and the trustee may decline for its own reasons.

Expect a request for fresh papers from time to time. Keep originals safe and report any change of address or circumstances to the trustee.

After the trust is set up

With assets inside, the trustee runs the trust under the instrument, keeping accounts and minuting each decision it takes.

Meetings happen at set points, not weekly. A yearly review is a sound habit, and another is due whenever your family or assets change.

The review is also the moment to revise your letter of wishes. Should the trustee or an adviser change, the instrument sets out how, and the trustee handles the paperwork with us.

Tax follows people as well as the trust. Your home country decides what you report, which is why your tax adviser should see the draft instrument before you sign.

For yearly work in money terms, see the cost guide. The plain answers and the overview show who does what. When you are ready, ask for a quote.