Trust & Foundations Services
Protecting wealth and ensuring its transfer across generations — structured with precision across the world's leading trust jurisdictions.
Request a ConsultationStructured Wealth Protection Across Leading Jurisdictions
Trusts and foundations are among the most powerful instruments available for asset protection, succession planning, and confidential wealth structuring. Used correctly, they separate legal ownership from beneficial enjoyment — placing assets beyond the reach of future creditors, protecting family wealth across generations, and providing a framework for succession that avoids the cost, delay, and publicity of probate.
Elaris provides trust and foundation formation and administration services across the jurisdictions with the strongest and most tested legislative frameworks — Jersey, Guernsey, Seychelles, BVI, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, and the Cook Islands.
Trust & Foundation Services
Discretionary Trusts
The most widely used trust structure for wealth protection and succession. The trustee holds assets for the benefit of a defined class of beneficiaries and has discretion over distributions — providing maximum flexibility and protection from creditor claims.
Purpose Trusts
Non-charitable purpose trusts used for specific commercial or structural objectives — holding shares in SPVs, facilitating securitisation, or supporting orphan structures in capital markets transactions. Available in BVI, Cayman, Jersey, and Mauritius.
Private Foundations
Civil law equivalents of trusts — widely used in Liechtenstein, Panama, and the Cook Islands. The foundation is a separate legal entity that owns assets in its own right, governed by a foundation council, with beneficiaries defined in the foundation statutes.
STAR Trusts (Cayman)
The Cayman Islands Special Trusts Alternative Regime provides a uniquely flexible structure combining purpose trust and discretionary trust characteristics — widely used for holding fund vehicles and complex multi-generational family structures.
Trust Administration
Ongoing trustee services — maintaining trust accounts, executing distributions at the direction of the protector, filing required regulatory returns, and managing the trust’s relationship with underlying corporate entities and bank accounts.
Protector Services
Acting as protector to an existing trust — providing independent oversight of the trustee, holding reserved powers over trustee actions, and ensuring the settlor’s letter of wishes is respected over the life of the trust.
Trust & Foundation Jurisdictions
We establish and administer trust and foundation structures in the following jurisdictions, selected for the strength and flexibility of their legislative frameworks.
🌍 Channel Islands
Jersey · Guernsey — among the world’s oldest and most tested trust law frameworks, with extensive case law and sophisticated trustee infrastructure.
🌊 Caribbean
Cayman Islands (STAR Trusts) · British Virgin Islands · Bahamas · Nevis — flexible legislation, robust asset protection provisions, and well-regarded trustee firms.
🌍 Indian Ocean
Seychelles International Trust · Mauritius — low-cost structures with strong asset protection provisions and good banking access.
🌍 Europe & Pacific
Liechtenstein Foundations · Cook Islands Trust — the strongest asset protection jurisdictions in their respective regions.
Why Trust Structure and Jurisdiction Matter
A trust is only as strong as its governing law. Jurisdictions with weak legislative frameworks or inadequate case law precedent may not provide the asset protection or succession certainty the settlor expects — particularly when creditor claims, forced heirship rules, or foreign court orders are involved.
Elaris advises exclusively in jurisdictions with tested, creditor-resistant trust legislation — where the courts have consistently upheld trust structures against foreign judgment creditors, forced heirship claimants, and government seizure orders. The choice of trustee jurisdiction is as important as the choice of trustee.
Ready to Begin?
Speak to an Elaris advisor about your specific requirements. Initial consultations are complimentary and without obligation.