TRUST - Property given to a trustee
to manage for the benefit of a third person. Generally
the beneficiary gets interest and dividends on the trust
assets for a set number of years. An agreement under
which one person transfers title to specific property
to another who agrees to hold or manage it for the benefit
of a third person.
An equitable right, title or interest in property,
real or personal, distinct from its legal ownership;
or it is a personal obligation for paying, delivering
or performing anything, where the person trusting has
no real. right or security, for by, that act he confides
altogether to the faithfulness of those intrusted. This
is its most general meaning, and includes deposits,
bailments, and the like. In its more technical sense,
it may be defined to be an obligation upon a person,
arising out of a confidence reposed in him, to apply
property faithfully, and according to such confidence.
2. Trusts were probably derived from the civil law.
The fidei commissum, is not dissimilar to a trust. Trusts
are either express or implied. 1st. Express trusts are
those which are created in express terms in the deed,
writing or will. The terms to create an express trust
will be sufficient, if it can be fairly collected upon
the face of the instrument that a trust was intended.
Express trusts are usually found in preliminary sealed
agreements, such as marriage articles, or articles for
the purchase of land; in formal conveyances, such as
marriage settlements, terms for years, mortgages, assignments
for the payment of debts, raising portions or other
purposes; and in wills and testaments, when the bequests
involve fiduciary interests for private benefit or public
charity,, they may be created even by parol.
- 2d. Implied trusts are those which without being
expressed, are deducible from the nature of the transaction,
as matters of intent; or which are superinduced upon
the transaction by operation of law, as matters of equity,
independently of the particular intention of the parties.
The most common form of an implied trust is where property
or money is delivered by one person to another, to be
by the latter delivered to a third person. These implied
trusts greatly extend over the business and pursuits
of men: a few examples will be given.
When land is purchased by one man in the name of another,
and the former pays the consideration money, the land
will in general be held by the grantee in Trust for
the person who so paid the consideration money.
When real property is purchased out of partnership
funds, and the title is taken in the name of one of
the partners, he will hold it in trust for all the partners.
When a contract is made for the sale of land, in equity
the vendor is immediately deemed a trustee for the vendee
of the estate; and the vendee, a trustee for the vendor
of the purchase money; and by this means there is an
equitable conversion of the property.
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