Position as at 31 August 2026. This article deals with draft legislation. It will be reviewed on introduction to Parliament and again on enactment.
On 7 August 2026 the Office of the Chief Master published the draft Regulation of Trusts Bill 2026 in Government Gazette No. 55166 under Government Notice No. 4088. Cabinet had approved it for public consultation on 29 July 2026. Written comments to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development close on 11 September 2026. If the Bill is enacted substantially as drafted, it will replace the Trust Property Control Act 57 of 1988 with a new Act of 39 sections across seven chapters, and it will change the working life of every trustee in the country.
The Bill is not law. There is no commencement date, it must still be introduced, passed, signed and proclaimed, and the clause numbering may change in Parliament. Even so, trustees who wait for enactment before looking at their files will be starting from behind. This article sets out what the Bill proposes, how it differs from the position today, and what a trustee can sensibly do in the meantime.
What has actually happened, and what has not
What has happened is a publication for comment. The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development is receiving written submissions on the Regulation of Trusts Bill 2026 until 11 September 2026, and the Fiduciary Institute of Southern Africa has asked its members for input to its Trust Technical Committee by 4 September 2026. Clauses do get rewritten between gazette and enactment.
What has not happened is any change to a trustee's existing duties. The Trust Property Control Act remains in force in full, and nothing in the Regulation of Trusts Bill 2026 obliges a trustee to file anything today. Equally, no trustee should read it as a reason to relax. South Africa's exit from the Financial Action Task Force grey list on 24 October 2025 did not soften trustee obligations.
The single most important shift is one of posture. Under the current Act, the Master ordinarily becomes involved only when something goes wrong, for example on a beneficiary complaint, an application to remove a trustee under section 20, or a written request to account under section 16. Under the Bill, trustees would carry continuing compliance obligations whether or not anyone is in dispute. A quiet, well-behaved family trust would still have filings to make.
The Trust Property Control Act repealed, not amended
This is the point most commentary gets wrong. The Bill does not amend the 1988 statute. Clause 37 provides that the Trust Property Control Act, 1988 (Act No. 57 of 1988) is repealed. A 38-year-old Act, and the body of practice built around it, would be replaced wholesale.
Much of the substance survives the move. The care, diligence and skill standard in section 9(1) of the current Act, the separate trust account requirement in section 10, the Master's power to call a trustee to account in section 16, and the court's power under section 13 to delete or vary a provision producing consequences the founder did not contemplate all reappear in recognisable form.
What is genuinely new is the administrative machinery bolted on top: an annual filing cycle, a compliance notice regime, administrative fines, and a wider beneficial ownership obligation. With the Trust Property Control Act repealed, transitional provisions in the Bill would govern how existing trusts move across. A trustee already in conflict with a co-trustee or a beneficiary should treat all of this as a live issue rather than a future one, because compliance failures tend to surface first in trust disputes in South Africa rather than in correspondence with the Master.
Regulation of Trusts Bill 2026: two proposed annual obligations
The Regulation of Trusts Bill 2026 proposes two recurring filings that have no equivalent in the current Act.
Annual financial statements
Clause 20 would make annual financial statements compulsory for every trust, each year. Where a trust was not preparing them at commencement, the first set would be due within six months of the commencement date. They would not need to be audited or independently reviewed, which keeps the cost lower than trustees usually fear, but they would need to exist and to be prepared properly.
There is a narrow proposed exemption where the trust deed is silent on financial statements and aggregate inflows and outflows stay below a threshold. The Minister has not gazetted that threshold, so nobody can currently say which trusts would qualify, and any figure quoted is speculation. Commentary has also flagged a tension between clause 20(3) and clause 20(5), with the odd result that a trust which voluntarily kept accounts may be locked into preparing them while an identical trust that kept none may qualify for relief.
An annual return to the Master
Clause 21 would introduce an annual return to the Master, on a prescribed form, carrying prescribed information and a prescribed fee, due within six months after the anniversary of the date on which the first trustee was authorised. That anniversary date matters. It is neither the financial year end nor the date the deed was signed, so trustees will need their original letters of authority to work out when the filing window falls.
The fee has not been prescribed, and the accounting fee will depend on the state of the records. What trustees can plan for is that annual financial statements and an annual return to the Master would become recurring line items in the trust's budget. A dormant trust holding a single asset will find this irritating. A trading business trust will find it substantial, and that is where the burden lands hardest.
Considering whether your trust structure still earns its keep? Our trusts litigation team reviews trust deeds, trustee composition and the Master's file against the Bill as a fixed-scope engagement. Contact Vermeulen Attorneys to arrange a review.
Personal exposure: compliance notices and administrative fines for trustees
Clauses 33 and 34 of the Regulation of Trusts Bill 2026 would give the Master an enforcement route that does not involve a court. The Master would issue a compliance notice, and where the notice is not complied with, an administrative fine. Commentary indicates that the fine would be payable by the trustee personally, could not be recovered from trust assets, and that an appeal would lie to the Director-General and only against the fine itself. These readings need confirmation against the gazetted wording.
If that reading is correct, administrative fines for trustees would represent a real change in exposure. At present, the sanction for failing to comply with the beneficial ownership obligation sits in section 19(2) of the Trust Property Control Act, which provides that a trustee who fails to comply with an obligation referred to in section 10(2), 11(1)(e) or 11A(1) commits an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine not exceeding R10 million, or imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years, or to both. That is a criminal penalty, imposed by a court after conviction. An administrative fine would be imposed by an official, without that process. The route matters more than the maximum figure.
There is a related and more serious concern. Section 23 of the current Act, headed "Access to court", provides that any person aggrieved by an authorisation, appointment or removal of a trustee by the Master, or by any decision, order or direction of the Master, may apply to the court for relief, and that the court has the power to consider the merits of the matter, to take evidence and to make any order it deems fit. Commentary suggests the Bill contains no equivalent general review provision. If that is right, a trustee's ability to have a Master's decision reconsidered on its merits would be materially narrowed. That is a rule-of-law question rather than a technical one, and it is worth raising in a submission before 11 September 2026.
None of this means the Master will begin fining trustees imminently. It means a trustee who is not keeping records should fix that now, while doing so is still administrative rather than defensive. Where a co-trustee is the problem, beneficiaries should understand trustee misconduct and the remedies available to beneficiaries under the law as it stands.
Amending a trust deed and the beneficial ownership register
This is the most practically consequential proposal in the Bill, and it links two things trustees have tended to treat separately. Section 11A of the current Act already requires a trustee to establish and record the beneficial ownership of the trust, keep a record of the prescribed information, lodge a register of that information with the Master's Office, and keep it up to date. That obligation took effect on 1 April 2023, and compliance in practice has been patchy.
Clause 23 would widen the obligation. The register would have to include beneficiaries who are identifiable but not named in the deed, which reaches further than the current definition of beneficial owner, which captures each beneficiary "referred to by name" in the trust instrument. Discretionary trusts with a class of beneficiaries would feel this most, and a change would have to be recorded and lodged within ten days. Note also that the beneficial ownership register lodged with the Master is a different filing from the beneficial ownership return companies make to the CIPC. Doing one does not discharge the other.
Clause 6 is the sting. On the reading circulating in the profession, amending a trust deed would be blocked unless the beneficial ownership information has been lodged and is current, and acting on an amendment before the Master acknowledges it would be invalid, with personal liability for any resulting loss. Section 4(2) of the current Act simply requires a trustee to lodge the amendment once the deed is varied. Under the Bill, lodgement would move from a follow-up step to a precondition.
The sensible response is to get the beneficial ownership register accurate and lodged, rather than to rush a deed amendment through before enactment. That obligation already exists, and it would become the gateway to every future deed amendment.
Who may act as a trustee: disqualification, independence, resignation and removal
Authorisation stays where it is. Section 6(1) of the current Act provides that a person appointed as trustee may act in that capacity only if authorised in writing by the Master, and clause 8 of the Bill re-enacts that. Acts performed by an unauthorised trustee remain open to challenge long after the event. Section 6(1A) already disqualifies unrehabilitated insolvents, persons declared delinquent, persons removed from an office of trust for misconduct involving dishonesty, and persons convicted of fraud, dishonesty or money laundering offences. Clause 9 would add further grounds.
On independence, clause 10(4) would allow the Master to appoint an independent trustee where all the trustees are beneficiaries, all of them are related to one another, and the trust transacts with outsiders. Today this is a matter of good practice and case law rather than a statutory requirement in ordinary family trusts. A family that would rather choose its own independent trustee than have one appointed should think about that now.
Resignation would become slower. Section 21 of the current Act lets a trustee resign by written notice to the Master and to the ascertained beneficiaries. Clause 25 would make a resignation effective only once the Master's written acknowledgement reaches the trustee, so a trustee remains in office, and exposed, until the paperwork returns. On removal, clause 26(2)(d) reportedly adds being under debt review as a ground on which the Master may remove a trustee, extending the existing grounds in section 20(2). Trustees weighing an exit should read our note on the removal of trustees and termination of a trust.
What trustees should do now, and what to leave until enactment
Keep the two categories apart, because acting prematurely on a draft is its own risk.
Do now, because it is required today or costs nothing to fix
- Find the letters of authority. Confirm every serving trustee is authorised, and note the date the first trustee was authorised, since that date would drive the annual return cycle.
- Audit the beneficial ownership register. Confirm it was lodged, that you hold the Master's acknowledgement, and that it reflects the current founders, trustees and beneficiaries. This obligation exists under section 11A right now.
- Reconstruct the minute book. Absent minutes are the most common weakness in trusts that later come under scrutiny.
- Bring the accounting records up to date. Records are the foundation of both the financial statements and any answer to a compliance notice.
- Check that trust assets are actually in the trust. Assets never transferred, or held in a trustee's name, are a separate and immediate problem.
- Confirm bank mandates and disclosure. Section 10(2) already requires a trustee to disclose their capacity to any accountable institution with which they engage as trustee.
- Comment, if the Bill affects you materially. Written comment closes 11 September 2026, and official government information on the consultation is published through the government portal.
Leave until the Bill is enacted
- Filing an annual return. The form, the information and the fee have not been prescribed, and the duty does not yet exist.
- Restructuring a deed around clause numbers that may change in Parliament.
- Winding up a functioning trust on the assumption of a compliance cost that has not been quantified.
Where a trust is factually insolvent or no longer serves any purpose, winding it up may well be the right answer, and it may have been the right answer before this Bill appeared. That decision carries tax and creditor consequences, and the tax treatment depends on the assets and the terms of the deed. Take advice on the specific facts.
Poor records rarely stay a compliance issue. They surface years later, usually in trust litigation after the founder dies, when nobody is left who can explain what was decided or why.
When to get attorneys involved
Legal input is worth the cost where a trustee is unauthorised or may be disqualified, where the beneficial ownership register was never lodged or is materially out of date, where a deed amendment is contemplated, where all trustees are beneficiaries and related to one another, where the trust trades with third parties, or where a trustee wants to resign and the co-trustees are not cooperating. Business trusts carry the heaviest burden under the Bill and should be looked at first.
Book a trust compliance and structure review. Our trusts litigation team reviews the deed, the trustee composition and the Master's filings against the Bill, and can assist commercial clients with a written submission before 11 September 2026. Speak to Vermeulen Attorneys.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Regulation of Trusts Bill 2026 already law?
No. It is a draft published for public comment in Government Gazette No. 55166 on 7 August 2026. It has no commencement date and must still be introduced in Parliament, passed, signed and proclaimed. The Trust Property Control Act 57 of 1988 remains in force until that happens.
Will my family trust have to file an annual return and pay a fee?
If the Bill is enacted in its present form, yes. Clause 21 proposes an annual return to the Master on a prescribed form, with a prescribed fee, due within six months after the anniversary of the date the first trustee was authorised. Clause 20 separately proposes compulsory annual financial statements, which would not need to be audited or independently reviewed. The fee and the clause 20(5) exemption threshold have not been prescribed, so no reliable cost estimate is possible.
Can I still amend my trust deed?
Yes. Amending a trust deed is governed today by the deed itself and by section 4(2) of the Trust Property Control Act, which requires the amendment to be lodged with the Master. Clause 6 of the Bill would make lodgement of current beneficial ownership information a precondition to an amendment taking effect, and would treat action on an unacknowledged amendment as invalid.
Can a trustee be fined personally?
Under the current Act, section 19(2) creates a criminal offence for failing to comply with certain obligations, carrying a fine not exceeding R10 million or imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both, on conviction. The Bill proposes a separate administrative route in clauses 33 and 34, under which the Master issues a compliance notice and then an administrative fine. Commentary indicates the fine would be personal and not recoverable from the trust, which requires confirmation against the gazetted wording.
Does my trust need an independent trustee?
There is no general statutory requirement today, although it is long-established good practice where control and benefit would otherwise sit in the same hands. Clause 10(4) of the Bill would allow the Master to appoint an independent trustee where all trustees are beneficiaries, all are related, and the trust deals with outside parties.
What happens to my existing trust when the Trust Property Control Act is repealed?
Clause 37 proposes an outright repeal, and the Bill contains savings and transitional provisions to carry existing trusts across. Existing trusts would not cease to exist, and existing letters of authority would not automatically fall away. The transitional provisions determine what an existing trust must do and by when, and should be read carefully once the enacted text is available.
Should I close my family trust?
Not as a reaction to a draft Bill. Trusts continue to serve legitimate estate planning, asset protection and succession purposes. Where a trust is dormant, factually insolvent, or was never properly funded, winding it up may be sensible on its own merits, and creditors including the South African Revenue Service would deal with their claims in the normal course. Take advice on your facts before deciding.
Can I comment on the Bill?
Yes. Written comments go to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development and close on 11 September 2026. Members of the Fiduciary Institute of Southern Africa were asked to route input through its Trust Technical Committee by 4 September 2026.
This article is general information on draft legislation and is not legal advice. Clause references are to the draft Bill as gazetted on 7 August 2026 and may change. For advice on a specific trust, contact Vermeulen Attorneys.
