TRSM92020 - How to: contents: claim a trust and authorise an agent: contents: how to authorise an agent online

Before an agent can view or make changes to a trust registration online, the trustee will need to authorise the agent using the ‘digital handshake’. Steps need to be taken by both the agent and trustee to complete the authorisation process.

Trustees

A trustee can authorise an agent to maintain the trust on their behalf by completing the following steps:

1. Claim the trust if the trustee has not already done so – see TRSM92010. The trustee will need to ensure that they claim each trust they want the agent to access.  

2. Tell the agent when the trust has been successfully claimed. The agent will create a request authorisation link and email this to the trustee. If there is more than one trust, the agent will send a separate link for each trust.

3. Select the authorisation link and sign in to the Trust Registration Service with the same Organisation Government Gateway user ID and password the trustee used to register or claim the trust.

4. Follow the instructions on screen to authorise the agent and complete the digital handshake.

Please note that the authorisation link will expire after 21 days.

Trustees must keep the email that their agent sends them. They may need to use the link within the email if they decide to remove their agent later.

There is a different process to claim a trust and authorise an agent if the trustee is digitally excluded, as set out in TRSM92040.

Agents

An agent can gain authorisation from their client to maintain a trust online by completing the following steps:

1. Ask their client to set up an Organisation Government Gateway User ID and password for each trust they want the agent to access, if they do not already have one for each trust.

2. Tell their client that they must answer several questions about the trust and persons associated with the trust to claim it. The agent should give their client the latest details of the trust so that their answers match the information HMRC holds.

3. Sign in to their agent services account after their client has claimed the trust, then select the option to ‘ask a client to authorise you’.

4. Enter the trust’s Unique Taxpayer Reference or Unique Reference Number to get a request authorisation link to share with their client.

5. Send their client an email with the request authorisation link and tell them which trust the authorisation link is for. Their client will have 21 days to use the authorisation link before it expires.

6. The client will then need to sign in to the Trust Registration Service using the same Government Gateway user ID and password they used to claim the trust.

The agent will need to send their client a new authorisation link for the trust if the trustee does not use the link before it expires.

Once the authorisation process is complete, the agent will not need to answer questions about the trust or people associated with it to view or make changes to the trust online.