Leading Member Discretionary Trustee Company

About Product

Where a LYD Leading Member Discretionary Trust (“LMDT”) is being established or upgraded the best Trustee is a Leading Member Corporate Trustee for Discretionary Trusts (“LMCT”).

This ensures that the Leading Member Appointors control the Trustee and have veto over all decisions.

PLEASE NOTE: ASIC has recently increased company registration fees - https://asic.gov.au/for-business/payments-fees-and-invoices/asic-fees/asic-fee-indexation/

IMPORTANT INFORMATION regarding your ASIC Company Registration

This product includes the registration of a company with ASIC. Please ensure the company name you would like to register is available prior to proceeding.

The cost of this document INCLUDES the required ASIC registration fee of $576 (excludes GST as ASIC fees are GST free).

► $726.00 (inc GST & ASIC Fees) - OR provided under your unlimited membership (exc ASIC fee)

► The master document has been signed off by LY Legal and is congruent with Australian law.

General Information

The LMCT along with the Leading Member Appointor control the LMDT. The beauty of the LMDT is it lasts beyond the life of a Leading Member Appointor and ensures the control of the LMCT passes to the next Appointor without the company being muddied by an estate challenge on the death of the Appointor.

Benefits

A strong LMCT ensures :

Succession planning in the trustee appointors to ensure on-going continuity
Provide power of veto to the Leading Member Appointor as well as the ability to limit or extend the class of beneficiaries
Only lineage or blood relative beneficiaries are looked after

Frequently Asked Legal Questions

Who acts as Chair?

The Chairman has the casting vote in the event of any locked vote on the Board. The constitution allows a rotating chair or a chair who can be appointed for an indefinite or definite period.

What happens if the company registration details I have entered are incorrect?

If your application is declined by ASIC, a member of our team will be in contact with you. If your registration is successful however you have provided us with incorrect company establishment details, ASIC may charge a fee to make changes. Please ensure ALL information has been checked prior to finalising the interview process, including checking that the company name you would like to register is available and spelt correctly. We recommend checking this on the ASIC professional registers available at www.asic.gov.au.

Will you register the company for me?

Yes, we have a direct integration with the ASIC web services application. The ASIC registration fee is included in your document price - no GST has been charged on this amount. If you do not wish for us to register the company for you, please select "no" where this question is asked throughout the interview process.

Do you provide a completed Form 201 with company documents?

No. From October 2019, Australian company registrations must be completed online. The paper Form 201 is no longer available and not required. All answers are sent directly to ASIC for registration.

How does it differ from an ordinary company?

The LYD Leading LMCT is a special purpose company that provides

Succession planning in the trustee appointors to ensure on-going continuity
Provide power of veto to the Leading Member Appointor as well as the ability to limit or extend the class of beneficiaries

Can my existing company be upgraded to a LMCT?

Yes however you will need to use the LMCT upgrade of a company constitution and before you do ensure only the proposed Leading Member Appointor is the shareholder by cancelling all other shares

How long does this document take to assemble?

Depending on the complexity of the data, this document should take approximately 15-30 secs (after ASIC payment) to assemble. If you experience timing outside of this please contact Support via the Surge app, alternatively please read this article for troubleshooting tips https://info.lightyeardocs.com.au/supportcentre/troubleshooting-longer-assembly-times-timeouts .

Is this document a legal document?

All master documents have been signed off by LY Legal lawyers. Tony Anamourlis of LY Legal advises that “at no time, due to inbuilt legal protection and security measures can a user change or amend a document on the LYD platform that has been signed off by a practicing solicitor. To do so would result in the user drafting a document of a legal nature and engaging in the provision of legal services. In addition, it would be a breach of copyright. In our opinion when completing the form fields through the LYD platform, users and their employees are merely carrying out an administrative task which is not the provision of legal advice.”

However in some complex areas such as the insertion of a varied range of client instructions into a Will or other such documents the user must be mindful of the extent to which a document is being drafted by the user rather than merely the administrative task of completing a form where the relevant fields are inserted into the reviewed and signed legal document provided by LY Legal.

The above advice is born out of numerous cases dating back to Re Sanderson, Ex parte Law Institute of Victoria [1927] VLR 394, 397 where the Court held:

“if a person does a thing usually done by a solicitor, and does it in such a way as to lead to the reasonable inference that he is a solicitor – if he combines professing to be a solicitor with action usually taken by a solicitor – I think he then does act as a solicitor.”

Likewise in ACCC v Murray (2002) 121 FCR 428, 448 where Murray was building a franchise business that involved the legal writing and drafting of Wills from scratch based on the client’s personal circumstances. The Court held that this process was legal work.

Is the document easy to read?

All LYD products are written in plain English and assessed for readability. If at any time you come across any errors, please contact support@lyd.com.au.

What lawyers sign off on the LYD documents?

All LYD documents are prepared and signed off by LY Legal.

Are the LYD documents reviewed regularly?

All LYD documents form part of the LYD internal review process. We review all documents at least annually or when required to do so due to changes in legislation. Further details of this process and a review schedule is include on this website.

Can I get a sample of this document?

Yes, please email support@lyd.com.au to request a sample document for you to review.