Head of Trusts   

Flexible Location - Agile

The firm

This International Law firm is widely recognised as a market leader. As well as the firms outstanding reputation within the legal sphere, this firm has been recognised by Chambers Global as Band 1 in a number of areas of law as well as placing 35th in the UK 100 Ranking in 2020.

The role

As the Head of Trusts you would be responsible for the supervision and management of the Trusts Administration team and you would be the key contact for partners on client and staff matters. This role will entail a large amount of client contact, living independently with clients, beneficiaries, banks, investment managers and other professional advisers such as valuers and accountants.
 
The interesting aspect of this role is that it is location Agnostic which allows legal professionals to come from varying areas as our agile working policy allows candidates to work from home or from any of our offices but candidates should be willing to travel to our London and Cheltenham office on a regular basis as the team are split across these two locations.  

You would be working closely with one of the larges practice groups in the firm with an annual revenue of over £23 million. 

This is what you will be doing

• Supervise and manage the members of the team including being responsible for the structure of the team, the way the work is carried out, providing technical support, listening to and trying to resolve any problems that arise
• Reviewing the Trust teams systems and processes
• Supervise and manage the members of the Trust team, which includes being responsible for the structure of the team, the way the work is carried out, providing technical support, listening to and trying to resolve problems that arise day to day
• Reviewing the Trust team’s systems and processes and streamlining and updating as appropriate
• Involved in the interviewing and recruitment of staff for the Trust team
• Act as appraiser and reviewer of staff performance within the Trust team, under the firm’s appraisal system
• Provide continual on the job training and guidance for those members of the Trust team who need it
• Liaise with partners regarding client and staff matters
• Managing your own caseload, client relationships and engaging with all those that may be involved with any given matter
• Pro-actively managing your clients to ensure any tax-planning and/or succession planning issues are considered and acted upon when appropriate
• Management of relationships between grant-making and applicant charities, dealing with prospective beneficiaries, drafting deeds and associated policies
• Overseeing and contributing towards the timely preparation of trust accounts and tax returns including inheritance tax returns and dealing with HM Revenue and Customs as required
• Calculating trustees’ liabilities to IHT, CGT and Income Tax and making use of annual exemptions
• Preparing for and attending trustees’ meetings and taking minutes of those meetings
• Dealing with payments and distributions from trusts, both capital and discretionary income distributions
• Activating investment reviews
• Monitoring the performance of investment portfolios
• Preparing and reviewing trustees’ investment policy statements
• Reviewing and interpreting trust deeds and related documentation with input from the wider team, as appropriate
• Review all income tax and capital gains tax trust returns prepared by the team prior to sending to trustees for signature and submission online to HMRC
• Keeping managers and partners regularly updated

• Minimum of 10 years experience in Trust Administration with part spend in a management role
• Experience and knowledge of an accounting and tax return software such as Digita and Troika
• Demonstrate excellent client and staff management skills
• Be willing to share knowledge and experience with colleagues
• Be organised and have the authority to tackle difficult issues as and when they arise
• Be capable of running a significant number of files and work matters simultaneously
• Have excellent organisational skills and the ability to prioritise competing demands effectively
• Have a high degree of attention to detail
• Have strong problem-solving skills
• Be flexible and willing to undertake a wide variety of tasks
• Be a pro-active team player, who is also highly self-motivated and able to work on their own initiative
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to develop rapport with a wide variety of individuals
• Have strong numerical skills
• Be computer literate and competent with Microsoft Word and Excel

• Agile working
• Highly competitive salary
• Comprehensive corporate benefits package