Trust registration

What is filed

Registration under the International Trusts Act calls for only three items: the trust's name, the trustee's name, and the establishment date. Held privately on the trustee's file in Rarotonga, and closed to public inspection, are the deed itself, who the settlor is, the beneficiaries, and anything concerning a protector or reserved powers.

What remains private

Anything of substance. Under Cook Islands law the parties, the assets, the distributions, the letter of wishes and the solvency records are all kept confidential. A foreign court can compel disclosure only through a Cook Islands order, which is not obtainable in the situations that would prompt a foreign creditor to ask for it.

That confidentiality does not cancel the duty to report the trust for tax purposes. Functioning on its own, CRS reporting still calls for the trust's existence, its trustee and the relevant account details to be disclosed, whatever Cook Islands registration law provides.

Why registration matters

It is registration, rather than execution, that engages the Act's protective provisions. A trust that has been executed but not registered gains no benefit from the limitation periods, the burden of proof provisions or the refusal to recognise foreign judgments. Bringing the trust inside the statutory framework is precisely what registration does.

Annual renewal

Each year registration is renewed by paying a government charge, which the trustee arranges and passes on within annual administration. If a renewal is missed, registration falls into arrears, opening up an argument that the protective provisions did not stay continuously in effect. At onboarding, verify that the trustee sees to renewal unprompted.

See the trust deed and trustee requirements.