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Report terminated and dormant trusts  

In an effort to speed up compliance with the requirement to capture information about the parties to a trust on the BO Register, the Office of the Chief Master announced the creation of two email addresses where trustees can report terminated and dormant trusts to remove them from the pool of trusts for which the details have to be captured.

Since the amendments to the Trust Property Control Act, 57 of 1988 (TPCA), became effective on 1 April 2023, all trustees are required to capture the “beneficial ownership” information about the trust(s) of which they are trustees on an online register held by the Master of the High Court.

One of the important issues is that nobody knows how many of the trusts registered with the different offices of the Master of the High Court are still active. In an effort to improve the compliance rate by removing terminated and dormant trusts from the trust universe in South Africa, the Office of the Chief Master created two email addresses where basic information about terminated and dormant trusts can be lodged.

FISA received the following information from the Office of the Chief Master:

Reporting of a terminated trust

Trusts already confirmed by the Master as terminated previously, are exempted from providing BO information. If you were the trustee of a terminated trust, please send the following to the dedicated e-mail address, TerminatedTrust@justice.gov.za:

Reporting of a dormant trust

Trusts which are dormant, are exempted from providing BO information. If you are the trustee of a dormant trust, please send the following to the dedicated e-mail address, DormantTrust@justice.gov.za:

  • A completed reporting a dormant trust declaration template
  • Copy of the ID of the person making the declaration
  • All relevant supporting documents to prove what you have declared

NOTE THAT, SHOULD THE TRUST NO LONGER BE DORMANT, THE TRUSTEE HAS A DUTY TO COMPLY WITH THE LODGEMENT OF BO INFORMATION WITH THE MASTER, AS PER THE TRUST PROPERTY CONTROL ACT 57 OF 1988 (as amended)

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