It is a legislative requirement that where a SMSF has individual Trustees, it must have a minimum of 2 Individual Trustees. It is noted that even though the Fund is required to have 2 Individual Trustees, it can still have only one Member. This means that the second Trustee does not need to be a Member of the Fund. Almost anyone can be a Trustee of a SMSF including a spouse, adult child, parents and friends.
What are the Roles and Responsibilities of Trustees
The roles and responsibilities of Trustees can be found in the ATO publication - Role and Responsibities of Trustees which can be found here.
What if you only have One Trustee
There are times where a client only wants to establish a SMSF for himself only and does not want a second Individual Trustee. In this instance the only option is to establish a Company to act as Trustee for the SMSF. The client will in turn be the sole Director and Shareholder of the Company giving him total control of their SMSF. The only disadvantage in having a Company Trustee is that ASIC charge a fee of around $600 to setup the company and also charge an annual fee of $40.
How to Establish a Company
If you do not have an existing Company to act as the Fund Trustee, but would like to establish a Company to act as Trustee for your SMSF, this can be done with any firm that establishes companies. A popular site used by our clients to establish a company for their SMSF is Cleardocs. Cleardocs company establishment service can be found here. Once you have established a company and the company has been issued with an ACN, you can proceed to our online application to establish your SMSF.
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