A trustee's job, reduced to one sentence: hold and manage assets that are not yours, strictly for the benefit of the people the trust was made for, under duties the law enforces personally against you. Most UK trustees are not professionals — they are the settlor's brother, the family friend, the adult child named in a will — and most learn what the role involves only when something goes wrong. Given that trustees are personally liable for breaches, the better order is to learn first.
Here are the duties as they actually apply in England and Wales, and what they look like in practice.
The first duty: know the trust deed and follow it
Everything starts with the trust instrument. The deed (or will) says what the trust is for, who can benefit, what powers trustees have and what they must or must not do — and acting outside it is a breach even with the best intentions. A distribution to someone the deed does not permit, an investment the deed forbids, income accumulated where the deed says pay it out: all personal liability, however kindly meant.
So the practical first step for any new trustee is unglamorous: obtain and actually read the deed, any supplemental deeds, and past trustee minutes. A striking share of trustee problems we untangle begin with "nobody had a copy of the deed".
The statutory duty of care
The Trustee Act 2000 sets the standard: such care and skill as is reasonable in the circumstances — with the bar raised for anyone with special knowledge or experience, and raised again for professional trustees paid for the role. The retired accountant trustee is held to a higher standard than the lay sibling; the solicitor-trustee higher still. The deed can modify this duty, but the default is what most trustees live under.
On investments, the Act is specific. Trustees must consider the standard investment criteria — suitability of investments to the trust, and diversification appropriate to its circumstances — review investments regularly, and obtain and consider proper advice unless it is reasonable not to (a small trust holding cash may not need an investment adviser; a £2 million portfolio does). Leaving a trust fund in a single stock, or in cash for a decade through inflation, are both classically actionable positions.
The loyalty duties: beneficiaries first, always
Three equitable rules do the heavy lifting:
- Act in the beneficiaries' best interests — not the settlor's wishes beyond the deed, not the family's sense of fairness, not your own convenience;
- Hold the balance between beneficiaries. Where one person has the income for life and others take capital later — the classic life-interest trust — every investment decision favours one side or the other, and trustees must be able to show they weighed both. Second-marriage trusts generate more impartiality disputes than any other kind;
- No conflicts, no unauthorised profit. A trustee cannot buy trust assets, lend themselves trust money, or take fees or commissions the deed does not authorise. Lay trustees generally cannot charge at all; professional trustees need either a charging clause in the deed or the Trustee Act's statutory route — reasonable remuneration for a non-sole professional trustee with the other trustees' written agreement (charities and contrary deed terms have their own rules). Where a conflict is unavoidable — the trustee is also a beneficiary, which is common — it needs recognising and managing in the open, not ignored.
The administrative spine: records, accounts, registration
Trustees must keep proper accounts and be ready to show beneficiaries the state of the trust. In 2026 that spine has hard statutory edges:
- Registration: nearly all express trusts must be on HMRC's Trust Registration Service, with changes reported within 90 days — our TRS guide covers deadlines, exclusions and the £5,000 penalty;
- Tax compliance: trusts with income or gains file returns, at trust rates that punish inattention (45% on most discretionary trust income); ten-year anniversary and exit charges on relevant property trusts need calculating on time — see our estate planning trusts guide for the regime;
- Minutes: decisions — distributions, investments, advice taken — recorded contemporaneously. Trustee minutes are the difference between demonstrating a considered decision and reconstructing one under challenge years later.
Acting together, delegating properly
Trustees act jointly: decisions generally need unanimity unless the deed says otherwise, and a trustee who signs whatever the "lead" trustee sends over is still fully liable for it. Delegation is allowed — investment management most usefully — but through the Act's machinery: a written policy statement for asset managers, and continued supervision. "We handed it to the IFA in 2019 and haven't looked since" delegates the work but not the responsibility.
Payment and liability follow the same logic. Being a trustee is unpaid by default, expenses aside; exoneration clauses in the deed can soften honest mistakes but never dishonesty; and trustees unsure of a genuinely difficult question — an ambiguous deed, a hostile beneficiary, a proposed distribution at the edge of the power — can take legal advice at the trust's expense, or in hard cases ask the court. Advice taken and minuted is itself substantial protection.
If you have just been asked to be a trustee
Say yes only after seeing the deed, understanding the assets and knowing who your co-trustees are — and check the trust's compliance is current before your name goes on it — past breaches remain the old trustees' liability, but the administrative backlog becomes yours to run, and ignoring a known breach once appointed can create liability of your own. Once in, an annual rhythm covers most of the role: a trustees' meeting, investment review against the policy, accounts prepared, tax filed, TRS checked, minutes written. It is a few hours a year that keeps a personal-liability role safely boring.
Acumon supports trustees with the whole administrative side — trust accounts, returns, TRS, anniversary charge calculations — through our trust tax team, alongside estate planning advice where the trust is part of a larger picture. If you have inherited a trusteeship in an untidy state, a one-off compliance review is the fastest way to find out what you have actually taken on.