What is the procedure and documents required for charitable trust

A trust can be can either be a private trust or a public charitable trust. Private trusts are governed by the Indian Trusts Act (1882) and are used for private purposes, such as running a private estate or institution. Privates trusts are not given any tax benefits by the Government of India.If you want to do some charitable work for public you can set up a public charitable trust.

Further, a trustee can be any person that is, an individual or a corporate body or a corporate sole, capable of holding property and competent to contract. and he must accept the trust.

The process of registration of trust:

1. Trusts are registered using a document called TRUST DEED. This document contains all the information about the Trust and is printed/written/typed on plain A4 size papers. Along with these papers you would need to attach a Rs. 100 Non-Judicial stamp paper (which you can get from a notary). All the Trustees and witnesses will have to give thumb impressions and signatures on these papers. All in all, you will need help of a notary to prepare the papers.

2. You may also need a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from the owner of the property where the registered office of the trust is to be situated. If you’re the owner of the property, then you don’t need to worry about NOC

3. Following elements must be mentioned in the Trust Deed document:
 
 a. Name and address of the Settler (Settler is the person who is setting up trust)
 b. Name(s) and address(es) of the other trustees
 c. Name of the trust
 d. Minimum and maximum number of trustees your trust can have
 e. Address of the registered office of the trust
 f. Objectives of the trust
 g. Rules and Regulations of the trust

4. For registering a trust you need minimum two trustees (i.e. one settler and another person). You can decide the maximum number of trustees and this number must be mentioned in the trust deed. All the trustees together are called Board of Trustees. This board collectively governs the trust.

5. In case of trusts all or some of the trustees can be related persons (i.e. they may belong to the same family)

6. All the trusts are allowed to work on all India level

7. Trustees are usually life-long members or their tenure is specified in the deed. Electoral process is not involved in the appointment of trustees.

8. Board of Trustees can also have various designations for trustees. Common designations are Chairperson and Managing Trustee

9. Trustees cannot draw any remuneration from the trust fund. However, they may take reasonable compensation for the professional services they provide to the Trust.

10. Profits earned by the Trust (e.g. interest gained from bank) cannot be distributed among the trustees.

11. Trust Deed can be amended through a Supplementary Trust Deed.

12. Most important part of the Trust Deed that you should pay special attention to is objectives of the trust. You should be as thorough as possible in writing down trust objectives so that you can function smoothly without any problems.

13. At the time of registration, only the Settlor and two witnesses are required to be present in front of the Sub-registrar under whose jurisdiction the registered office address comes. Sub-registrar will check IDs of these people. After that the Trust Deed will go to the counter where data entry takes place. In the end, Settlor and two witnesses will be photographed. You will need to pay a fee of Rs. 1100 for this process. Of this amount, Rs. 100 will be the registration fee and Rs. 1000 will be the charges of keeping a copy of the Trust Deed with the sub-registrar.

14. After about one week of submitting the papers, you can go back to the registrar’s office to receive a certified copy of the Trust Deed.