SMSF trustees in Queensland that wish to expand their fund to six members can now do so after a four-person cap in that state was removed as part of changes to trust law.
DBA Lawyers director William Fettes said while the state’s Trusts Act 2025 received royal assent in May last year, many of its relevant provisions came into force in late April, including an update that applies to SMSFs.
“There is a refinement that is relevant to SMSFs specifically and that is section 14 of the new act now expressly carves out SMSFs from the four-person trustee limitation, so we now have Queensland law better harmonised with the framework in section 17A of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act,” Fettes said during a recent online update.
“Better late than never because we’ve had six-member SMSFs since 1 July 2021 and it’s always a little discordant when you have a hard-coded limit like they did in Queensland around how many trustees you should have.
“Now there’s an ability for an SMSF, subject to the governing law in Queensland, to have six individual trustees.
“Obviously [this creates] a reminder that many deeds we still see are older form deeds based on a different version of the language in section 17A, or even earlier legislation, that does not permit more than four members.
“If you are having a larger-style SMSF, it is always important to confirm the governing rules and look at whether they cater for appointing additional trustees and members above the four-person cap that was previously in place.”
He added the new act, which replaces the Trusts Act 1973, also introduced changes to trustee duties, beneficiary rights and court powers in regards to discretionary trusts, testamentary trusts, unit trusts and SMSFs.
The new act stated trustees had duties to exercise care, diligence, skill, honesty and good faith, which were consistent with existing general law obligations on trustees acting as fiduciaries, he noted.
Additionally, they are also now required to allow a trust beneficiary to receive copies and inspect accounts of trust documents and be provided with these within a reasonable period after a request is made, unless that request is unreasonable.
Jason Spits
SENIOR JOURNALIST
Jason is a senior journalist with Benchmark Media and writes for the selfmanagedsuper website and magazine and smstrusteenews website. He has covered financial services since 1999 and has written about life insurance, superannuation, investment management and financial advice, in both a freelance and in-house capacity, and also did a brief stint as a media manager for an industry association. He has been the editor of trade titles Money Management and Financial Standard, and was most recently senior journalist with life insurance title Riskinfo.
Articles by Jason