Guide · 6 min · Last reviewed 30 September 2026

Glossary

One or two sentences each. A definition here is not the statute, and it is not advice.

Administrator: The person or firm that keeps the record, the books, and the calendar. An administrator is not the trustee. Somerell administers private trust companies. It does not act as trustee.
Beneficiary: A person the instrument is for. Holding the benefit is not the same thing as holding legal title.
Board: The directors or managers of a private trust company. The board decides. Administration does not.
Chartered: Authorized by a banking supervisor to act as a trust company. In Wyoming, a chartered family trust company is chartered by the Banking Commissioner. An unregulated private family trust company is not chartered.
Custodian: The bank or broker that holds accounts. Custody is not trusteeship. The accounts of a private trust company are in the company's name.
Decanting: A statute that lets a trustee move assets from one trust into another with different administrative terms. Wyoming: W.S. 4-10-816(a)(xxviii), in the statute since 2013. Nevada: NRS 163.556. South Dakota: SDCL 55-2-15. Delaware: 12 Del. C. § 3528. Alaska: AS 13.36.157 through 13.36.159. They are not the same.
Designated relative: The person a Wyoming family trust company is counted from, living or dead (W.S. 13-5-301). An unregulated company has one. A chartered family trust company may have two. Family members run to the tenth degree of lineal kinship and the ninth of collateral kinship, and include spouses and former spouses, with adopted children, stepchildren, and certain wards treated as natural children. Key employees of a family affiliate are included on narrower terms. Counsel applies the count to a real family tree.
Directed trust: A trust in which the instrument gives investments, distributions, or both to someone other than the trustee. Starting points: W.S. 4-10-718, NRS 163.553 through 163.5559, SDCL chapter 55-1B, and 12 Del. C. § 3313. Whether a direction cuts off liability depends on the statute and the clause. Ask counsel.
Distribution adviser: A person or committee the instrument names to decide distributions. They are not the trustee unless the instrument also names them as trustee.
Governing law: The law the instrument selects. It is not the same thing as the place where the work is done, or the place the trustee lives.
Instrument: The trust document: who the trustee is, what the trust is for, and which powers have been given to someone else.
Investment adviser: In a directed trust, the person the instrument names to direct investments. Sometimes called a trust director. The family's existing investment adviser may be that person. Naming them does not make them the trustee.
Place of administration: Where the trustee's work on the trust is done. It can differ from governing law and from the trustee's home. The difference can matter for tax. Ask counsel.
Private trust company: A family's own trust company, of either Wyoming kind. This site also calls it a PTC. Your private trust company is the trustee. Somerell administers it.
PTC: Private trust company. Either the unregulated kind or the chartered kind.
Regulated trust company that serves the public: A trust company chartered to accept trusts from people who are not one family. This site uses the long name so it is not read as a regulated private trust company. A bank trust department is the close cousin.
Purpose trust: A trust with no beneficiaries, created for a purpose. Families often use one to own the private trust company, so the family does not own the trustee. Whether to do that is counsel's question.
Regulated PTC: In the Wyoming statute, a chartered family trust company. Chartered by the Banking Commissioner, examined at least once every three years, capital of at least $500,000, up to two designated relatives.
Settlor: The person who creates the trust and transfers property into it. Also called the grantor.
Situs: A loose word for where a trust is. It hides the difference between governing law, place of administration, and the trustee's home. Ask which of the three is meant.
Trust protector: A person the instrument can authorize to remove a trustee, move a trust, or change administrative terms. The protector is not the trustee. Somerell does not act as protector.
Trustee: The person or company that holds legal title and carries out the instrument. For a family using a private trust company, that company is the trustee.
Unregulated PTC: In the Wyoming statute, a private family trust company. Not chartered, not supervised by the Division of Banking, no capital requirement, no regular examinations, one designated relative.
Waiver of supervision: The signed paper an unregulated Wyoming company's directors or managers deliver to the Commissioner, acknowledging that the company is not supervised (W.S. 13-5-701).
W.S. 13-5-301: The Wyoming statute that names the three kinds of trust company: public, chartered family, and private family.
Inventory: The list of what a trust owns. It belongs in the file from the start.
Minutes: The record of what a board or committee decided. Minutes do not make the decision. They show that it was made.
Distribution committee: A group the instrument or the company names to decide distributions, often so that a beneficiary is not deciding his own payment.
Successor trustee: The next trustee, named while everyone can still think. Death and a move end a trustee. They do not end the trust.
Self-settled trust: A trust a person creates for himself. The five states on the comparison page each have a version: W.S. 4-10-510 through 4-10-523, NRS chapter 166, SDCL chapter 55-16, 12 Del. C. §§ 3570 through 3576, and AS 34.40.110. Wyoming's exceptions are in W.S. 4-10-520. The others differ. None of them is a tax result. Ask counsel.
Exculpation: A clause that excuses a trustee. Courts read it narrowly. It does not cover bad faith.

Somerell administers private trust companies in Wyoming. It is not a trust company or a bank. It does not act as trustee or in any other fiduciary capacity, and does not offer to. It is not chartered or supervised by the Wyoming Division of Banking. Nothing on this site is legal, tax or investment advice.