What should you do if you have lost your Trust Deeds? A trust deed is a crucial document that sets out the explicit terms of trust arrangements and its governing rules, allowing a trustee to fulfill such a duty. Given the importance of the deed, a lost deed will create significant issues for trust and its trustee. Trustees have a fiduciary duty to keep the deed of the trust safe and familiarise themselves with the terms of the trust – see Hallows v. Lloyd (1888) 39 Ch D 686. Losing a trust deed is at the minimum a breach of the duty to keep the documents safe and potentially a breach of failing to act in accordance with the terms of the trust. Such a breach can potentially mean a trustee becomes personally liable. This article gives an overview of why it is important to safeguard the original trust deeds and what to do in circumstances of lost deeds. The most common scenarios we...