Trusts Bill exposure draft consultation

Overview

In November and December 2016, we sought your feedback on a draft Trusts Bill, as part of the Government's move to update the general law governing trusts in New Zealand.

The draft Bill was developed in response to the Law Commission’s extensive review of trust law conducted over 4 years, as well as follow up work by officials and trust experts to refine the Commission's recommendations.

We asked for your feedback on specific questions. We were mainly interested in whether the wording and structure of the draft Bill is sufficiently clear or how it could be made clearer, and whether anything may create unintended consequences.

The intention is that the Bill will not require existing trust deeds to be changed, because the Bill largely restates the existing law. Therefore, we were interested in feedback on how the new law will work for existing trusts.

We also welcomed any other comments you may have. Your answers will inform the content of the final Trusts Bill.

Consultation document and draft Bill

You can download and read the consulation document from:

Consultation document - A new Trusts Act for New Zealand: Exposure draft of the Trusts Bill (PDF, 160KB)

You can download and read the draft Bill from:

Draft Trusts Bill (PDF, 440KB)

Next steps

We are now analysing the submissions and will provide a revised Bill to the Justice Minister. The Justice Minister may then seek Cabinet’s agreement to introduce the Bill to Parliament.

It’s expected a final version of the Bill will be introduced to Parliament in 2017. You will then have an opportunity to comment on the specific proposals in the Bill when it is considered by a parliamentary Select Committee.

Personal information and confidentiality

We will hold your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1993.

We accepted submissions made in confidence or anonymously. If you want your submission to be treated as confidential, we asked you to clearly indicate that in your submission.

We may be asked to release submissions in accordance with the Official Information Act 1982 and the Privacy Act 1993. These laws have provisions to protect sensitive information given in confidence but we can’t guarantee the information can be withheld. We won’t release individuals’ contact details.