Category Archives: Trust Law

In common law legal systems, a trust is a relationship whereby property (real or personal, tangible or intangible) is held by one party for the benefit of another. A trust conventionally arises when property is transferred by one party to be held by another party for the benefit of a third party, although it is also possible for a legal owner to create a trust of property without transferring it to anyone else, simply by declaring that the property will henceforth be held for the benefit of the beneficiary. A trust is created by a settlor (archaically known, in the context of trusts of land, as the feoffor to uses), who transfers some or all of his property to a trustee (archaically known, in the context of land, as the feoffee to uses), who holds that trust property (or trust corpus) for the benefit of the beneficiaries (archaically known as the cestui que use, or cestui que trust). In the case of the self-declared trust, the settlor and trustee are the same person. The trustee has…