Trustees Duties and Powers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Trustees Duties and Powers - Essay Example â€Å"A Trust is an arrangement where one or more persons (the â€Å"Trustees†) hold property for another person or persons (the â€Å"Beneficiaries†). This relationship is governed primarily by the document creating the trust (the â€Å"Trust Deed†) and by legislation and case law. Legal ownership of Trust property is in the Trustees’ names but the beneficial interest belongs to the beneficiaries. The idea behind a Trust is the concept of duty. Trustees are under a duty to deal with the property in their hands in the interests of the beneficiaries. If they do not do so, they will be in breach of Trust and the beneficiaries may seek relief from the courts to ensure that the terms of the Trust are carried out.† Understanding from the above explanation, we find that a trust is an arrangement of one or more persons, who are known as the trustees. Over here, Sally is a trustee. A trustee arranges property, which may also be included as cash money, for the benefit of another person or persons, and those persons are known as beneficiaries. Therefore, from the understanding of the quoted text, we may figure out that under this circumstance, Harry and Caroline. The question is whether George may be included as a beneficiary for the 25,000 USD legacies. With regard to the first question, the trust which Sally had held for George is a secret trust. She has put the 25,000 on her own legacy as the money which is deemed to be distinguished from the main trust beneficial to her 2 children. There are many reasons why an individual might want to have a protective trust against the name of an outsider, however the purpose is to allow a certain sum of money as a safeguard in case of any misfortune or unfortunate event happening in the distribution of the trust. Since Bill is the executor of the will, it is on his discretion to award the legacy of the trust to George. The gift which Sally has given to George is a valid gift under the law of trust and therefore should be awarded to the beneficiary, which is George on the discretion of Bill himself. B) The second question is as follows: â€Å"Harry has, since Sally’s death, been made bankrupt. He asks for money from his trust fund to buy a house for himself Louise and George to live in. † As mentioned before, Harry is one of the main beneficiaries in the distribution of the trust. Even though his mother did not approve of his lifestyle and found him to be irresponsible to carry out the duties as beneficiary properly, there is no denying to the fact that he is indeed one of the beneficiaries and therefore has all the rights under the trust law to claim his stake in the property left by his mother. Understanding from the above statement, only the trustee has the power to assign where the trust is distributed, and the document of trust has the final binding nature with respect to the distribution of the trust property. Over here, Sally had assigned a protective trust to her son of an amount of 500,000 USD to be given to him, and the rest on RSCPA. â€Å"In order to understand a protective trust, it is first necessary to understand the purpose of its establishment. In contrast to an asset protection trust, which tends to be established with the interests of the settler (that is, the individual establishing the trust) in mind, a protective trus