contracts, devises. 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 entrusted. 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. 3. 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. 6 Watts & Serg. 97. 4. 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. 5. 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. 6. 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. 7. 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. 8. 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. Index, h. t.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
1. An equitable or beneficial right or title to land or other property, held for the beneficiary by another person, in whom resides the legal title or ownership, recognized and enforced by courts of chancery. Him, that he will faithfully apply the property according to the confidence reposed, or, In other words, according to the wishes of the grantor of the trust 4 Kent Comm. 304; Willis, Trustees, 2; Beers v. Lyon, 21 Conn. 613; Thornburg v. Buck, 13 Ind. App. 446, 41 N. E. 85. An equitable obligation, either express or implied, resting upon a person by reason of a confidence reposed in him, to apply or deal with the property for the benefit of some other person, or for the benefit of himself and another or others, according to such confidence. McCreary v. Gewinner, 103 Ga. 528, 29 S. E. 960. A holding of property subject to a duty of employing it or applying its proceeds according to directions given by the person from whom it was derived. Munroe T. Crouse, 59 Hun, 248, 12 N. T. Supp. 815. Accessory trust. In Scotch law, this ia the term equivalent to “active” or “special” trust. See infra. Active trust. One which imposes upon the trustee the duty of taking active measures in the execution of the trust, as, where property is conveyed to trustees with directions to sell and distribute the proceeds among creditors of the grantor; distinguished from a “passive” or “dry” trust.-Cestui que trust. The person for whose benefit a trust is created or who is to enjoy the income or the avails of it. Constructive trust. A (rust raised by construction of law, or arising by operation of law, as distinguished from an express trust. Wherever the circumstances of a transaction are such that the person who takes the legal estate in property cannot also enjoy the beneficial interest without necessarily violating some established principle of equity, the court will immediately raise a constructive trust, and fasten it upon the conscience of the legal owner, so as to convert him into a trustee for the parties who in equity are entitled to the beneficial enjoyment. Hill, Trustees, 116; 1 Spence, Eq. Jur. 511. Nester v. Gross, 66 Minn 371, 69 N. W. 39; Jewelry Co. v. Volfer, 106 Ala. 205, 17 South. 525, 28 L. R. A. 707, 54 Am. St. Rep. 31. Contingent trust. An express trust may depend for its operation upon a future event, and is then a “contingent” trust. Civ. Code Ga. 1895,