Trustees who bought or sold property, changed trustees or added beneficiaries over the summer are facing a lesser-known compliance step: updating HMRC's Trust Registration Service (TRS) within 90 days of the change. Conveyancing solicitors and some banks now ask to see evidence that a trust's TRS record is current before completing a transaction, according to guidance published on HMRC's website, bringing a rule that has existed since 2022 back into everyday practice.
What the TRS requires
Most UK express trusts must be registered with HMRC on the Trust Registration Service, whether or not they owe any tax. Non-taxable trusts already in existence on 6 October 2020 had to register by 1 September 2022. Trusts created after that date must register within 90 days of being set up, or of becoming liable to UK tax if that comes later.
Once registered, a trust receives a Unique Reference Number if it is non-taxable, or continues to use its Unique Taxpayer Reference if it pays tax. Trustees, or an agent acting for them, use this number to access and update the trust's record online.
The 90-day rule for changes
Beyond initial registration, any change to a trust's details must be reported within 90 days of the trustees becoming aware of it. This covers a new or outgoing trustee, a change of lead trustee, a new beneficiary, or a change in the trust's assets, such as adding a property or a bank account after a sale.
Solicitors handling a property purchase into or out of a trust routinely check the TRS record as part of due diligence, and an out-of-date entry can hold up completion while trustees update it. Banks opening or amending accounts for a trust have adopted similar checks, HMRC's TRS manual notes, since the register is one of the ways firms meet their own anti-money-laundering obligations.
HMRC's approach to penalties
HMRC has said it will not automatically issue the maximum £5,000 penalty for a first, unintentional failure to register or update a trust on time. Its published compliance approach treats an initial, non-deliberate failure as an opportunity to send a letter prompting the trustees to put matters right, rather than an automatic fine. Repeated or deliberate non-compliance remains liable to a penalty of up to £5,000 per offence.
The lead trustee carries legal responsibility for keeping the record accurate, even where a solicitor or accountant manages the day-to-day administration of the trust. HMRC's registration statistics have shown steady growth in TRS entries since 2022, as more family and property-holding trusts have come onto the register for the first time.