The Standard Provisions of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners [2nd Edition]
Who are STEP?
The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) is the worldwide professional association for practitioners dealing with family inheritance and succession planning. The Society helps to improve public understanding of the issues families face in this area and promotes education and high professional standards among its members.
STEP has approximately 20,000 members across 95 jurisdictions from a broad range of professional backgrounds, including lawyers, accountants, trust specialists and other estate planning practitioners. STEP members help families plan for their futures, specialising in a wide range of activities, from drafting a relatively simple will to more complex issues surrounding international families, protection of the vulnerable, family businesses and philanthropic giving.
An Introduction to the Standard Provisions
The STEP Standard Provisions is a publication, subject to the law of England and Wales, which sets out clear provisions to include in a Will avoiding technical terms that may confuse the lay reader.
Any properly drafted Will or Settlement must contain a large amount of text dealing with routine administration matters. It had been necessary to set this out in full in each document until STEP condensed this material into its Standard Provisions, which first published in 1992 and is now in its third edition.
Depending on when your Will was drafted and who drafted your Will, it may either include its own provisions without reference to any of the STEP provisions at all, or it may invoke any of the 1st, 2nd or 3rd editions of the STEP provisions.
Trust law has changed considerably since the first edition and the updated STEP Standard Provisions reflect this.
The STEP Standard Provisions second and third editions was led and mainly drafted by James Kessler QC TEP.
The STEP Standard Provisions [2nd Edition]
Click here to view the Standard Provisions on the STEP website (in PDF).
The STEP Standard Provisions [3rd Edition]
Click here to view the Standard Provisions on the STEP website (in PDF).