I am dealing with an estate that places the whole property into a life interest trust for spouse. Daughters A and B are Trustees, Daughters A, B and C are remainder men.
Typically in dealing with life interest trust there are two potential areas for registration. The trust created by the Will and the trust over the property.
I am unsure about the registration of the property trust as in this instance the whole property is in trust not just a half share. Does the property trust still need to be registered as the legal owners will be different from the beneficial owners? Yet this feels that I will be registering the same trust twice unless the property trust will just read Daughter A and B for the trust created by T’s Will.
If the legal title is vested in the trustees and only in the trustees then only the life interest trust needs registering. It is likely that the title at death is in the names of the deceased alone, as here seems the case, or jointly with the spouse. The PRs should assent in writing to the trustees (who may be themselves in a separate capacity) and file a form AS1 (see pellucid AS1 guidance from HMLR).
There should be no dispute by HMRC that prior to the assent the property was still subject to the admin period so no trust subsisted over it. So the 90 day TRS filing period starts only from assent. Of course if the assent is made more than 2 years after the date of death you may risk being involved in defending a theological dissertaton to the technically challenged and the line of least resistance is to register before the end of the 2 years. The PRs duty is to assent as soon as they can but not before in their judgment the asset is not required for administration of the estate.