Law of Trusts

A trust is an agreement whereby property is held and controlled by someone on behalf of someone else. A common example of this is where someone dies and leaves money for grandchildren who are too young to deal with it themselves. The money will be held in the name of trustees — for example, the children's parents. They will be the legal owners of the money and will have the power to invest andmake other decisions about it. But they are required to act only in the interests of the children, known as the beneficiaries of the trust, and they must not make any personal profit.

The concept of a trust is a creation of the law of equity. It is thus unique to common law countries such as the United States and most of the Commonwealth, although many countries, such as Japan have statutes which effectively impose trusts in certain cases. Even though the common law and equitable systems have long been merged, we still talk about the beneficiaries of a trust having ah "equitable" interest in the property, the trustees a "legal" interest. In addition, the original intention of equity still survives: to limit the powers of those who have legal rights but owe special responsibilities to others.

Some trusts are known as express trusts, having been intentionally created by someone with property to transfer (a settlor). The example is an express private trust. Other trusts are Implied - the law presumes that the settlor intended to create a trust even though he did not expressly say so. In all of these cases, the person appointed to be a trustee has a choice whether or not to accept the appointment hen the trust is created. But some trusts are constructive: the law imposes a trust and obliges the legal owner of property to consider the beneficial interest of another person, A common example of this is when the seller of a house is obliged t*o give a proportion of the proceeds to a former spouse who once lived there with him. Directors of companies and solicitors are often in the position of a constructive trustee regarding property under their control.

2080 symbols

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.004 сек.