A person
Someone the family knows
What they bring is judgment the family already trusts, and the continuity of the trust then depends on a successor the instrument actually names.
Private trust company administration / Wyoming
Your private trust company is the trustee. We administer it.
Somerell administers Wyoming private trust companies, which in practice means the meetings, the minutes, the books, and the calendar the board uses when it decides. If you already have a lawyer, an accountant, and someone who manages the investments, we are not looking to replace any of them.
We are not a trust company, and we do not act as trustee or in any other fiduciary capacity, nor do we want to. We administer your family's private trust company, and that is the whole of the work.
Your private trust company.The trustee. Decides.
Somerell.Administration. Records.
Accepting a trust
The board decides whether the company will accept.
Accepting a trust, Somerell
We prepare the file the board is looking at.
Investments
The board, its committee, or the adviser named in the trust decides.
Investments, Somerell
Records the direction and reconciles the statements.
Distributions
The committee or the board decides.
Distributions, Somerell
Logs the request, records the decision, and matches the payment to it.
Advisers
The board appoints them.
Advisers, Somerell
We keep them informed of what the file shows.
Tax returns
The accountant prepares them.
Tax returns, Somerell
We supply the books.
Legal documents
Counsel drafts them.
Legal documents, Somerell
We keep the signed copies.
Who should be trustee?
There are three ordinary ways the office gets filled, and the guides describe them without choosing one for you.
A firm
A regulated trust company that serves the public
You are hiring staff and a process that is built to outlast one officer, and often a platform of the firm's own. A bank trust department is the close cousin of this.
Your company
A private trust company
Your private trust company is the trustee, and the board is what has to keep meeting. Whether a particular family will actually do that is a question for counsel, not a conclusion of this page.
Services
- Board and governance record
The meeting calendar, the agendas, the minutes, and the registers the board actually uses.
- Trust records
The instruments as signed, the inventories, the directions, and the dates each instrument sets.
- Books and reporting
Accounting records and statements for the company and each trust, and the package the tax preparer needs.
- Distributions
A request is logged, the decision is recorded, and the payment is matched to that decision.
- Accounts
We prepare the paperwork and reconcile the statements. The accounts stay in your company's name, and we do not hold the assets.
- Advisers
One person your lawyer, your accountant, your investment adviser, and the custodian can call, rather than a new adviser.
Guides
- Trusts and trustees
The settlor, the trustee, and the beneficiaries, and what the instrument is actually for.
9 min
- Kinds of trustee
A person, a bank, a trust company that serves the public, and a family's own company.
8 min
- Private trust companies in Wyoming
Wyoming's unregulated company and its chartered one, and who counts as family.
12 min
- Choosing a trustee
Directed trusts, control, decanting, fees, and the questions worth asking before anyone is named.
11 min
- Choosing a jurisdiction
How Wyoming compares with Nevada, South Dakota, Delaware, and Alaska, and why the people you already have usually matter more.
10 min
- Glossary
Short definitions of the words the guides use.
6 min
Why Wyoming, and how it compares
South Dakota, Delaware, Alaska, Wyoming, and Nevada can all support a modern trust, and directed trusts, decanting, and trust protectors exist in all five, though the statutes are not the same statute.
What we actually administer is a Wyoming company. The one we spend the most time on is the unregulated private trust company, which the statute calls a private family trust company, and we also administer the regulated, chartered kind. Wyoming is the one of these five with a statutory foundation, and it is the one in which a private family trust company can waive Banking Division supervision after it has been formed.
If the lawyer and the trustee you already trust are in Sioux Falls, Wilmington, or Las Vegas, the comparison is still worth reading, and it is not a reason by itself to leave them.
Tell us about your company.