How to set up a trust in St Kitts

Before you start: what you decide

Four choices shape the set-up, and your lawyer will raise each one in the first call.

• Resident trustee. At least one trustee must ordinarily reside in the Federation, so you need a local trust company before a deed can work.
• Trust type. The FSRC lists charitable, spendthrift or protective, unit and common trusts (source: FSRC St Kitts: Types of Trust). Pick the one that matches your purpose.
• Control. The asset protection provisions cover settlor transfers and retained control (source: FSRC St Kitts: Asset Protection Provisions). Decide early how much say you keep.
• Assets. Say what moves in, and whether a holding company sits under the trust.

Your tax adviser at home reads the plan before drafting begins, because the Act does not decide how your own country treats you.

A trust will not answer every goal. The first review might point you toward something else, and that is a useful outcome.

Step by step: from enquiry to signed deed

Your lawyer must review the deed, and the trustee must confirm it will act, before anything is signed. The stages run as follows:

1. Enquiry. You tell us where you live, what you plan to hold and why.
2. Trustee match. We line up a local trust company that meets the residence condition, subject to its own acceptance checks.
3. Identity checks. Certified identity papers and source-of-funds evidence are collected for every party.
4. Deed under the Act. The law firm drafts the deed under the Trusts Act, Cap. 5.19, in the trust type you chose.
5. Signing. You sign before a notary where you live, and the trustee accepts office.
6. Attestation and certificate. The trustee files the attestation with the Registrar of Trusts, and the trust is enforceable once the Registrar issues a certificate.
7. Funding. Assets move to the trustee only after the certificate arrives and the bank has cleared where the money came from.

Waiting for the certificate matters because enforceability starts there. Assets sent earlier would sit in a trust that cannot be enforced.

Nothing is signed until your lawyer has reviewed the deed and the trustee has confirmed it will act. The steps run in this order. You can gather the papers in the meantime.

Documents the trustee asks for

The trustee wants papers on each person and on the funds. We expect the following, and the trustee may add items once it has seen the structure.

• A certified passport or identity card for the settlor and each beneficiary.
• Proof of address for each of them, dated within the last three months.
• A written account of how the settlor built the wealth, with supporting papers.
• Evidence for the specific funds you plan to transfer, such as a sale contract or a bank statement.
• Beneficiary names, dates of birth and relationship to the settlor.
• Share certificates or title papers for any company or property that goes in.
• The signed deed, from which the attestation for the Registrar of Trusts is prepared.

If a paper is not in English, a certified translation may be required. Ask the trustee soon what level of certification it takes.

Identity and source-of-funds checks

The trustee cannot act until these checks are done, and a trustee that skips them is not safe to hold your assets.

Three questions come up every time: who you are and who benefits, where each sum came from, and what the structure is for.

Short answers with papers behind them move fast. A round figure with no proof or a loan that cannot be traced slows the file.

Sanctions screening and politically exposed person checks run at this point. A result that needs closer study is explained to you early, with what the trustee still needs.

We keep one checklist with open items marked. A single missing bank letter can hold up the filing, so we chase it from day one.

After the trust is set up

After funding, the trustee runs the trust under the deed. It keeps the accounts, convenes meetings and records its decisions.

The trustee keeps the Registrar’s certificate with the trust records (source: FSRC St Kitts: Creation and Establishment of Trusts).

Because one trustee must stay resident in the Federation, check each year that the position still holds.

Review the structure yearly and again when family or assets change. A marriage, a birth or a business sale are typical triggers.

Keep the letter of wishes current. It steers the trustee without binding it.

Turn to the law and features page for the rules behind the steps and to the cost breakdown for what they involve. The St Kitts overview gives the full picture.