Reserved Instrument Activities

CliveB · 14 July 2026 10:36

I’ve been looking back at a discussion in February 2024 regarding this, but I’m still not entirely clear about what is and isn’t reserved. AI isn’t helping; in fact, it’s adding to the confusion! I’m not a Solicitor but I am a Registered Trust & Estate Practitioner, and I’m trying to understand what I can and can’t do in my one-man-band business. One AI-assisted Internet search came up with the suggestion that, whilst a trust of land is caught, a trust of cash/investments isn’t. Copilot, Microsoft’s AI has now said, "On a literal reading of Schedule 2, paragraph 5 of the Legal Services Act 2007, the definition of a reserved instrument activity does indeed refer to:

“preparing any other instrument relating to real or personal estate for the purposes of the law of England and Wales…” [legalservi…ard.org.uk], [legislation.gov.uk]

and “instrument” excludes wills, powers of attorney, certain agreements not intended to be deeds, and simple stock transfers without trusts or limitations. [lsbstaticw…indows.net], [legalservi…ard.org.uk]

If that wording were read completely in isolation, it could appear to capture the drafting of trust deeds concerning cash and investments, because a trust deed is an instrument concerning personal property.

However, the reason many practitioners say that drafting trust deeds is not itself a reserved activity is that the scope of “reserved instrument activities” has long been understood, in practice and regulatory guidance, to be focused on conveyancing and certain instruments affecting property transactions rather than every deed relating to personal property. The statutory wording is broader than the activity that has traditionally been treated as reserved.

The crucial point is that there is a distinction between:

What the text appears to say when read literally, and
What activities regulators and the courts have treated as falling within the reserved legal activities regime.

I would therefore be cautious about accepting the blanket statement:

“The drafting of deeds is reserved no matter what assets the deed relates to.”

The legislation does not actually say “all deeds are reserved”. Rather, it reserves the preparation of specified instruments, and then defines “instrument” in a particular way. [legislation.gov.uk], [lsbstaticw…indows.net]

Equally, I would be cautious about the opposite blanket statement:

“Anyone can draft a trust deed because it only contains cash or investments.”

The legislation does contain the “real or personal estate” wording that you’ve identified. [legislation.gov.uk], [legalservi…ard.org.uk]

My assessment is that you’ve identified a genuine legal ambiguity. The statutory wording does provide ammunition for the argument that a deed creating or declaring trusts of investments could fall within paragraph 5(c), yet the mainstream regulatory understanding of reserved instrument activities has historically been much narrower than “all trust deeds”.

For a compliance-sensitive business, the safest approach is not to rely solely on the LSB summary page but to obtain (or review) a specialist opinion on the scope of paragraph 5(c) and any relevant case law or regulatory guidance. The question is really not “is it a deed?” but “is this type of instrument one that the reserved instrument activity provisions have been interpreted as covering?”

So, in short:

You are correct that the statutory wording is not limited to land and expressly refers to personal estate. [legislation.gov.uk], [legalservi…ard.org.uk]
The statement that the legislation only applies to land is too simplistic. [legislation.gov.uk], [legalservi…ard.org.uk]
It does not automatically follow that every trust deed of cash or investments is a reserved legal activity. That requires a deeper analysis of how paragraph 5 has been interpreted and applied in practice.

This is one of those areas where the statutory text and the commonly repeated summary of the law do not sit entirely comfortably together."

I want to be able to provide a holistic service to my clients based on 55-years of experience, but not at the risk of breaking the law!

jack · 14 July 2026 12:22

My understanding is that the prohibition relates to the drafting of all lifetime trusts, whatever the nature of the trust property, but does not extend to the drafting of any will trust. This is utterly obtuse since just as much skill is required for drafting a complex will trust, but the clients will of course still have remedies in contract or tort despite there being no regulatory breach of statute (which in itself must cause a vestigial loss).

I practised from 1991 to 2019 as a chartered tax adviser while remaining on the Roll as a non-practising solicitor. Having drafted thousands of trusts prior to that I nevertheless observed the rules and arranged for a practising solicitor to settle my lifetime trust drafts. Nonsense on stilts but I did not want to hazard my livelihood by a tussle with the Minotaur of the Cube. The breadth of what I actually did personally required much negotiation with PI insurers whose imagination is not their strong suit.

I also, in the interests of my clients, assumed that my advice to them was not covered by legal professional advice privilege, which severely hampered my former direct operations in what was then known as “back duty” advisory work. I had to do it thereafter indirectly as a consultant to a regulated firm.

I had also to keep away thereafter from formally and directly conducting activities of probate and litigation, again having to arrange these indirectly. My expertise in these areas counted for nothing. You must surely bump up also against the probate restriction.

Jack Harper

CliveB · 14 July 2026 12:55

Thanks, Jack. I know you contributed to the 2024 discussion along similar lines.

paul.storrie · 12 August 2026 12:09

I put the following question to Claude:

According to the Legal Services Act 2007 Schedule 2 clause 5, “Reserved instrument activities” appears to mean, amongst other things at clause 5(1), “preparing any other instrument relating to real or personal estate for the purposes of the law of England and Wales” (which i would contend includes a trust) and is not excluded by clause 5(3)(b) because a trust is constituted by way of a deed.

And Claude’s response was:

"Your argument holds together on a plain reading

You’re right that (3)(b) only excludes agreements not intended to be executed as a deed. A trust deed, being executed as a deed, isn’t touched by that exclusion. None of (3)(a), (c) or (d) obviously catches an inter vivos trust settlement either — (a) is wills, (c) is powers of attorney, (d) is about stock transfer forms specifically. So nothing in (3) plainly carves a trust deed out, and a trust deed is at least arguably “an instrument relating to… personal estate” (or real estate, if the trust holds land) under (1)(c). That’s a fair textual case, and I don’t think it can be waved away.

There’s actually a further point that cuts in your favour: (3)(d) shows Parliament did turn its mind to trusts in drafting this provision — it specifically excludes stock transfers only where they contain no trust, meaning a stock transfer that does carry a trust is left within the reserved category. That’s some evidence the drafters weren’t trying to exclude trust-bearing instruments wholesale.

But there are real counter-arguments, which is why I don’t think this is settled

Provenance and traditional scope. The “instrument relating to real or personal estate” wording is inherited almost verbatim from section 22 of the Solicitors Act 1974 (and its 19th-century predecessors). That provision’s historical target — and how it’s been understood in practice — is dispositive conveyancing-type documents: conveyances, assents, mortgages, deeds of gift, and the like, prepared “for or in expectation of a fee.” It has not, in practice, been treated by the profession, the SRA, or the Legal Services Board as reaching the drafting of trust settlements, wills, LPAs, or general commercial/private client documents generally — an entire will-writing and trust-planning industry has operated on that basis for decades.
(3)(d) may be narrower than it looks. That provision is specifically about “a transfer of stock” — historically a reference to stock transfer forms under the Stock Transfer Act 1963, a narrow, specific document type — not trust instruments generally. It’s not obvious it tells us anything about the scope of (1)(c) for trust deeds more broadly.
Penal-statute construction. Section 14 LSA 2007 makes carrying on a reserved legal activity without authorisation a criminal offence. Courts conventionally construe provisions that create criminal liability narrowly, resolving genuine ambiguity in favour of the narrower reading — which would cut against extending (1)(c) into new territory by inference.
No case law on point. I’m not aware of any reported decision that has actually tested whether preparing a trust deed is a reserved instrument activity under paragraph 5. This is, as far as I know, genuinely untested — it’s been discussed as an open question by commentators on the reserved-activities regime, not resolved by a court."

paul.storrie · 12 August 2026 13:03

I also asked Claude:

Could you give me examples of the drafting of trust settlements, wills, LPAs, or general commercial/private client documents generally not being treated by the SRA or the Legal Services Board as comprising reserved legal activities?

And Claude said:

"Wills — solid evidence

The LSB’s own published list of the six reserved activities does not include will-writing.
The LSB conducted formal section 24/26 investigations (2011–2013) into whether will-writing should become reserved, informed by LSCP research. In 2013 the then Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling rejected the LSB’s recommendation, citing insufficient evidence of consumer detriment — a direct government decision confirming the non-reserved status was to continue, not an oversight.
An entire will-writing industry (Which?, Trust & Will-style platforms, SWW-regulated members, etc.) operates lawfully without solicitor involvement, and this was extensively documented and scrutinised by the LSCP, LSB, Legal Ombudsman and more recently the CMA (2023–2024 investigation) — none of which challenged the basic proposition that will-writing itself is unreserved; their concerns were about consumer protection standards, not unauthorised reserved activity.

LPAs — solid evidence

The Office of the Public Guardian’s own process assumes no solicitor is required to draft or register an LPA — non-solicitor LPA-drafting services operate openly and at scale (I found this reflected across multiple commercial and Law Society sources).
The Law Society’s own guidance on LPAs treats solicitor involvement as good practice/optional, not a legal requirement — consistent with LPAs sitting outside the reserved list.

General commercial/private client document drafting — solid evidence

ICAEW’s own technical guidance for accountants (“Accountants and legal services”) sets out which activities are reserved (probate, if accredited; notarial; oaths) and treats general legal advice and document drafting — including tax and company law work — as work accountants have “for many years” carried out as core practice, explicitly distinguishing this from the narrow reserved list.
The SRA’s guidance on multi-disciplinary practices explicitly contemplates non-solicitors in MDPs delivering legal advice/drafting (e.g., tax liability advice) as non-reserved activity requiring no SRA authorisation, provided no reserved activity is being carried out in the same matter.

Trust settlements specifically — thinner evidence
This is the weakest link in the chain, and I want to be upfront about that. I have not found a specific SRA, LSB, or government statement that says in terms “trust drafting is not a reserved instrument activity.” What I have is:

ICAEW’s guidance implies trust and succession work has long been a normal part of accountancy practice, alongside probate (which is separately reserved and requires accreditation) — the contrast suggests trust drafting itself sits in the non-reserved category by omission, but this is an inference from silence, not a positive statement.
The practical reality that pension trust deeds, family trusts, and will trusts are routinely drafted by actuaries, pension consultants, and trust corporations without apparent regulatory challenge — but as I flagged earlier, this is evidence of enforcement practice, not a reasoned legal conclusion that the activity falls outside para 5(1)(c).

So: wills and LPAs are well-evidenced as settled non-reserved territory, with clear regulator/government paper trail. Trust settlements are more of an inferred/practice-based position than a demonstrated one — I wouldn’t treat that part of the original claim as established without a more targeted search of SRA enforcement decisions, case law, or STEP/Law Society guidance addressing trust drafting head-on".

When asked for further background on trust drafting being a reserved instrument activity, Claude said:

"Counter-evidence I found — professional bodies treating deed/trust drafting as reserved:

CIOT/ATT (Chartered Institute of Taxation / Association of Taxation Technicians) guidance, reported in Tax Adviser magazine: their guidance states plainly that “the drafting, preparation and execution of deeds is a ‘reserved activity’ under the Legal Services Act 2007 which can only be carried out by an authorised or an exempt person,” and that CIOT/ATT members “are not authorised to carry on a reserved legal activity unless they are also members of the Law Society or the Bar.” The immediate trigger was HMRC using deeds to settle tax enquiries, but the guidance as reported is framed as a general statement about deeds, not confined to that one scenario.
A will-writing industry legal-information page (wills.org.uk) states directly: “A deed (and therefore a lifetime trust) can only be completed by a solicitor,” and explicitly warns that “a lifetime trust can be established by anybody using a template… is also an illegal activity” — i.e., their own industry commentary treats lifetime trust deeds as within reserved instrument activities, precisely because they’re executed as deeds. This is a private-client trust context, not a land or pensions one, and it points the opposite way from “trust settlements aren’t reserved.”

What I still haven’t found:

Any SRA enforcement decision, warning notice, or reported case specifically prosecuting or disciplining a non-lawyer for drafting a trust deed.
Any Law Society practice note or STEP position statement that squarely addresses whether trust drafting is or isn’t reserved.
Any LSB or SRA statement, one way or the other, specifically calling out trust settlements as excluded from “instrument relating to… personal estate.”

Where this leaves the original claim: the “not treated as reaching trust settlements” assertion doesn’t hold up against what I found — if anything, the two sources that most directly address lifetime/inter-vivos trust deeds (as opposed to pension trusts) treat them as caught by the reserved instrument activity definition precisely because they’re deeds. The wills/LPA examples remain solid ground for those two document types specifically, but they don’t extend cleanly to trust deeds, and the trust-specific evidence I could find actually undercuts rather than supports the “industry has operated for decades on the basis it’s unreserved” framing.

I’d treat “trust settlement drafting is not a reserved instrument activity” as an unsettled and genuinely contestable proposition, with some real evidence (CIOT/ATT guidance, will-writing industry commentary) pointing toward it being reserved when executed as a deed — which loops back to your original trust deed question: nothing here gives you a clean basis to conclude trust deeds fall outside the reservation either."