10 Tips to Help Clients Choose Financial Controllers for Their Testamentary Trust Wills

The term “financial controller” is not legally defined in estate planning – rather it is the phrase I prefer to use to encompass financial attorneys, executors, trustees, and the appointors of testamentary discretionary trust (TT) wills. In this blog post, I will be using it to refer to trustees and appointors of TTs.

When speaking with clients, grouping the roles of financial attorneys, executors, trustees, and the appointors collectively as financial controller helps to prevent us from getting bogged down in the exact timeline of when someone might be “wearing a particular hat” for a specific legal role. I find this approach helps clients stay focused on the high-level strategy and makes the decision-making process much easier.

Guiding clients through the selection of their financial controllers is one of the most important aspects of our role as a lawyer and adds significant value to the estate planning process.

Why Clients Find It Hard to Choose Financial Controllers

Many clients find it hard to choose financial controllers, especially if they have never personally acted as a financial attorney, executor, trustee, or appointor.

In the estate planning process, we are asking clients to make a critical decision about these roles with very little lived experience or insight into what the position actually entails.

As estate planning lawyers, we have the benefit of seeing these decisions play out, both successfully and poorly. We have the privilege of reviewing case law and observing the nuanced factors other clients bring to their decision-making, which allows us to pass that invaluable insight forward to other clients.

Selecting the financial controllers is a crucial step in estate planning – one well worth dedicating significant time to during client meetings.

Here are 10 tips to help clients choose the financial controllers for their testamentary wills:

1. Verify the Legal Requirements

All financial controllers must be at least 18 years of age upon taking on the role.

While it is possible to nominate a minor to take on the role upon attaining the age of 18 in some jurisdictions, under the Trusts Act 2025 (QLD), there is an express prohibition on nominating a minor as a trustee conditional upon them attaining legal majority.

While a controller might have satisfied the age requirement, it is worth considering whether they are financially mature enough for the role, especially if they are a young adult.

In our blog post, Trusting the Trustees, we discuss the relevant factors to consider and some possible strategies for determining when it is suitable for children and young adults to take on the financial control of their inheritance.

An individual’s financial history is also a critical factor in their suitability as a financial controller. Individuals who are currently undischarged bankrupts or those with a significant history of insolvency should generally be avoided. This often introduces unnecessary complexity or risk into the administration of the estate.

2. The Right Number of Controllers

While many jurisdictions generally mandate a maximum of four trustees (although it should be noted there is usually no such limit for the role of appointor), the decision-making process can become unruly as the number of controllers increases. It is worth noting that individual trustees and appointors must make their decisions jointly, which effectively means that any dissenting trustee or appointor has veto power over every decision. When acting for a couple, one strategy that is popular is to recommend establishing a panel of controllers with representatives from each side of the family or social circle to represent each partner. This is particularly relevant for testamentary trusts where the beneficiaries are minor children and cannot be involved in the control roles themselves.

In cases where there is a separate trust earmarked for each adult child, we can then implement tailored control strategies for each TT.

3. Ensure at Least One Financial Controller is an Australian Tax Resident

At least one trustee must be an Australian tax resident to ensure the TT does not lose its Australian tax residency.

This is something to bear in mind when dealing with clients who have international families or networks.

4. Aim for Continuity Across Control Roles

It can help with the administration of a client’s affairs if you nominate the same people across all of the financial control roles, so that there is continuity in managing their affairs.

Consider a scenario where a testator is involved in a car accident, remains in a coma for a week, and then passes away. During that first week, the attorney appointed for financial matters and for medical matters will be managing affairs; however, the moment the testator passes, that authority immediately shifts to the executor.

If attorneys and executors for financial matters are the same persons, it can help to avoid a large disruption to the management of their financial affairs and the loss of knowledge if the attorneys transition to the role of executor. While this is not a hard-and-fast rule, it serves as a valuable guideline.

There will be circumstances where appointing the same person to both roles is inappropriate; however, in most vanilla scenarios, aligning your attorney and executor appointments is well worth considering.

5. Mirror-Image Appointments for Couples

It is common to receive instructions from clients that they want to appoint a person with a close personal connection to them, resulting in each client nominating a different person as their executor, financial attorney, trustee and appointor.

For example, Client A wishes to appoint Client B as their first financial controller, and then Client A’s brother as their backup if Client B cannot act.

Client B wishes to appoint Client A as their first financial controller, and then Client B’s sister as their backup if Client A cannot act.

This can create the odd result where if both clients have died, the final financial controller will be different depending on which client died last.

Especially if the clients are leaving behind young children, this is a counter-intuitive result because the final outcome does not accord with one of the client’s vision for the future.

Guiding the clients to discuss and agree on who the financial controller should be in the event that they both cannot act results in a much more cohesive outcome and really helps to stress-test and build a robust estate planning strategy.

In scenarios where a couple cannot agree on whom to appoint as financial controllers, the estate planning lawyer’s role is to facilitate a solution, helping the parties reach a combination that ensures both clients feel confident and secure in the decision.

6. Build Robust Contingency Plans

One area of instructions which clients often overlook is planning for contingencies.

Given that estate planning must account for future changes, I often ask clients: “If you had died a month ago, who would you have wanted to step up for your family?”

We then build the plan around those immediate preferences, while factoring in “what-if” scenarios without getting stalled by too much complexity.

Alternatively, we can workshop a specific timeline, for example, only planning for the next five years. This gives clients the freedom to decide for the “now”, knowing they can easily return to update the plan as their circumstances change.

In my own testamentary trust will, I have appointed my husband, and then my father and my father-in-law as my financial controllers. While both of our fathers are currently in their late sixties and fully capable of taking on the responsibility, this may change over the next five to ten years. To account for this, I have established a contingency plan.

We have built in a “substitution” clause where our respective brothers step in to fill any vacancies. For example, if my father is unable to act or passes away, my brother will step in to act alongside my father-in-law or my brother-in-law. This ensures we always have a reliable combination of the older and younger generations ready to manage the TT for our children.

7. Outsource Expertise with Professional Advisers

Clients often feel pressure to nominate their family or friends who they think are the most financially sophisticated. However, that is not always necessary.

My guidance to clients is to choose the people whom you trust the most to act in the best interests for you and your children.

If you trust them to seek professional advice, then we can always scaffold their financial skills by bringing in the external financial capabilities through an experienced estate administration lawyer, an accountant, or a financial adviser.

Choosing someone you trust implicitly is a lot more important than choosing someone who is the best with money.

8. Align Appointments with the Testator’s Value System

When appointing financial controllers, it is vital that the controllers share the testator’s beliefs and values. This is especially important where there are minor beneficiaries or a range of beneficiaries who are unable to act as the financial controllers themselves.

Guide your clients to nominate people who they believe have the beneficiaries' best interests at heart; who will be able to step into that financial control role, champion their interests, who will act honestly, ethically, and diligently in the exercise of their powers.

9. Prioritise “Finishers” Over “Dreamers” for Administrative Success

Let’s face it – being a financial controller is an important but ultimately boring role.

It involves lots of paperwork, deadlines, and lots of meetings with lawyers and accountants.

It is not for everyone!

When guiding a client on whom to appoint as a financial controller, consider which loved one is most likely to have the ability to see tasks through to completion and will not struggle with follow-through and the mundane paperwork.

If your financial controllers do not have an eye for detail, ability to meet deadlines and to recognise when to bring in outside support, it can lead to opportunity costs and financial loss for the beneficiaries.

10. Use the "Brainstorming Exercise" to Screen for Trust and Integrity

If you find your clients are having difficulty in deciding on their financial controllers, this quick brainstorming exercise might help.

I give credit to one of our TT Precedents Club members, Lucy Percy (principal of Head and Heart Estate Planning) as this is an exercise she uses with her clients and in her course when it comes to choosing guardians.

I think it translates really well to the decision of choosing your financial controllers as well.

In this exercise, ask your clients to make a list of people in their network, including family members, friends, or even professional advisers who could be a suitable financial controller.

The key characteristics to look for are:

• Absolute Trust: You trust them implicitly to act in your best interests and those of your beneficiaries.

• Integrity: You trust them to act ethically and in the best interests of your beneficiaries at all times.

• Self-Awareness: You trust that they will seek external advice when needed. They do not necessarily need high-level financial sophistication themselves, but they must recognise their limits and know when to engage an accountant, financial adviser, or lawyer.

• Reliability: You are confident that they will follow any guidance provided in your Letter of Wishes.

Once clients have used these criteria to develop a shortlist, it can then help bring some clarity to the available options.

The selection of appropriate financial controllers can ultimately make or break the effectiveness of a testamentary trust will. Guide your clients through their options to help them reach an informed decision. By stress-testing various scenarios and playing “devil’s advocate”, you can help them make the right choice.