Trust & Estate Services

Selecting an appropriate trustee is one of the most important decisions you make when creating your estate plan. You must have confidence that the trustee has the right combination of personal attributes, technical skills and administrative capabilities necessary to be a good steward of your estate planning goals as reflected in your trust instrument. You also want to have confidence that the trustee will be able to serve for the entire duration of your trust, which could span generations.

Given the broad range of skills necessary to fulfill the obligations of a trustee, a corporate trustee—a corporation legally empowered to act as a trust—may be the ideal fit. At Fiduciary Trust Company we have almost one hundred years of experience serving as corporate trustee, providing our clients the assurance that their trusts will be administered expertly for the long-term. Our clients take comfort knowing that future generations of their families will be advised by trust experts who understand their family dynamic and are committed to the highest standards of integrity, professionalism, and personal attentiveness.

New Hampshire law allows for investment and administration responsibilities to be clearly divided among trustees and third parties. In a directed trust, an investment advisor can have the exclusive duty to invest the trust’s assets while the trustee remains responsible for specific other aspects of trust administration. Fiduciary Trust of New England is able to serve as a directed trustee under New Hampshire law regardless of the grantor’s or beneficiary’s state of residence.  We routinely serve as trustee for individuals and families who are already working with another investment advisor, or have substantial nonmarketable or concentrated positions, but who would like an experienced and independent corporate trustee to administer their trusts.

Some individuals choose to have family members or advisors serve as trustees. While this is appropriate in certain situations, it also means those individuals may be taking on administrative burdens and increased risks, given the complex and ever-changing tax, estate, and trust laws.

We offer a range of services to assist trustees in their duties. Trustees can take advantage of any or all of these services, depending upon their needs:

• Investment management
• Custody
• Trust principal and income accounting
• Beneficiary distributions
• Bill payment
• Tax filings
• Regulatory and legal updates

We have extensive experience working with clients and their attorneys to migrate trusts to New Hampshire in order to benefit from the Granite State’s advantageous trust laws, including its various trust modification tools, when appropriate.

We can help you determine the optimal private trust company design for your family and align our services to your specific needs.

Fiduciary Trust of New England can provide services for Civil Law Foundations, which appeal to clients in certain foreign jurisdictions as well as some Private Trust Companies.

As your personal representative, co-personal representative or agent for personal representative, Fiduciary will ensure that your estate is settled in a manner that is both timely and tax-efficient, while at the same time relieving a family member or friend of a potentially burdensome responsibility.

We provide access to the tax, asset protection and other benefits of New Hampshire’s trust laws to clients nationwide and abroad, through Fiduciary Trust of New England.