Absolute Owner: a person owning property for his own benefit.
Administration of an estate: the collection of assets, payment of debts, and distribution to the beneficiaries of property in the estate of a deceased person.
Agent: a person appointed by another to act on his behalf, often to negotiate a contract between the principal and a third person.
Bare trustee: is generally a trustee who has no obligation but to hand over the trust property to the person entitled to it at the latter’s request. Such a trust is known as a bare trust. The phrase has a more specialised meaning in the Act (see notes to section 34).
Beneficial interest: the rights of a beneficiary in respect of property held under a trust for him.
Beneficiary: a person entitled to benefit from a trust.
Capital money: money arising from certain transactions relating to settled land or land held on trust for sale. It may arise from sale, the granting of certain leases and similar transactions, borrowing on the security of a mortgage, and other circumstances in which the money should be treated as capital of the settlement, e.g. the proceeds of a fire insurance claim relating to the land. Generally capital money must be received by the trustees of the settlement, not the beneficiary. When the money is raised or paid for a specific purpose (e.g. for improvements authorised by the Settled Land Act 1925) it must be applied for that purpose. Otherwise, it is invested and held by the trustees on the same trusts as the land itself was held.
Charitable Trusts:. see Trusts.
Charity Commission: a body, now governed by the Charities Act 1993, generally responsible for the administration of charities. The Commissioners are responsible for promoting the effective use of charitable resources, for encouraging the development of better methods of administration, for giving charity trustees information and advice on matters affecting charity, and for investigating and checking abuses. The commissioners maintain a register of charities and decide whether or not a body should be registered; an appeal from their decision may be made to the High Court. Their Annual Reports (published by the Stationery Office) indicate how the Commissioners operate and how they are allowing the law of charity to develop.
CREST: a computer based system for the electronic transfer of and settlement of trades in securities replacing the former paper based system of shareholding and transfer with an electronic book entry system. The system operates under the Uncertificated Securities Regulations 1995.
Custodian: is defined as a person who undertakes the safe custody of some or all of the assets of the trust or of any documents or records concerning the assets (see section 17(2) of the Act).
Default power: a power available to trustees in default of or subject to other provision in a trust instrument or regulation. The powers conferred by the Trustee Act 1925 and the Trustee Investments Act 1961 are in general default powers.
Dispositive duty: see dispositive powers under powers below.
Execution: describes the way in which a person signs or seals (in the case of a corporation) a document and gives it legal effect.
Fiduciary relationships: the relationship of trustee and beneficiary is but one of a number of relationships generally described as fiduciary. It is a mark of such relationships that one person receives an authority or is entrusted with a job which he is bound to exercise or perform in the best interests of another.
General Powers of Investment: see notes to section 3 of the Act.
Instrument: a formal legal document. A trust instrument is the document setting out the terms of the trust.
Interests in land: rights of ownership of or over land are interests in land. Interests may be estates, interests or charges. These may be legal or equitable. See also legal interests.
Land: land is defined in the Trustee Act 1925 as land of any tenure, and mines and minerals, whether or not severed from the surface, buildings or parts of buildings, whether the division is horizontal, vertical or made in any other way, and corporeal hereditaments [rights in property which may be inherited]; also a manor, an advowson [a right to present a clergyman to a benefice], and a rent and other incorporeal hereditaments, and an easement [a right over land for the benefit of other land, such as a right of way], right, privilege, or benefit in, over, or derived from land, (Trustee Act 1925 section 68(6) as amended by the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 section 25(2) and Schedule 4). “Land” is defined in Schedule 1 to the Interpretation Act 1978 as including buildings and other structures, land covered with water, and any estate, interest, easement, servitude or right in or over land.
Legal interests in land: today, the only legal estates in land in England and Wales are those for either a fee simple absolute in possession or a term of years absolute: in broad layman’s terms a freehold or a leasehold. See Law of Property Act 1925 sections 1(1) and 205(1)(x). The other types of legal interest and charge are relatively few (Law of Property Act 1925 section 1(2)). All other interests are equitable interests (Law of Property Act 1925 section 1(3)). In relation to a trust of land, the trustees hold the legal estate. Third parties will usually want to acquire the legal interest free of the rights of the beneficiaries under the trust.
Measure: a measure is a piece of legislation passed by the General Synod of the Church of England to which the Royal Assent has been given. It has the force of an Act of Parliament.
Nominee: in the context of a nominee for trustees, a nominee is a person nominated to hold trust property in his own name on behalf of the trustees. This device is commonly used to facilitate dealings with the trust assets.
Personal property (personalty): all property that does not comprise land.
Personal representative: a person entitled to deal with a deceased person’s estate in accordance with his will or under the rules relating to intestacy.
Power: in this context, a power is an authority to act in relation to another’s property. A power may be administrative or dispositive. An administrative power is a power, the exercise of which does not affect the beneficial interests arising under a trust, such as a power to sell or lease property. In the present context, a dispositive power is a power, the exercise of which does affect the beneficial interests arising under a trust, for instance, a power of advancement and a power of appointment. A trustee’s power of investment is a power to invest trust property. A power of advancement is a power given to trustees (whether by statute or by express provision in the trust instrument) to apply some of the capital from the trust property for the benefit of a beneficiary under the trust. For instance, in the case of a gift of capital to A on reaching the age of 30, part of that capital might be used, for insurance, to buy him a house at an earlier time. A power of appointment is a power “given under some settlement or trust authorising the donee to make an appointment of some or all the trust property.”
Power of Attorney: a power of attorney is both the authority given by one person (“the donor”) to another person (“the donee” or “attorney”) to act for the donor in a transaction or a series of transactions or in the management of his affairs and the document by which that authority is given. Under the law of England and Wales a power of attorney made by an individual must be executed as a deed (Powers of Attorney Act 1971 section 1(1)).
Professional charging clause: a provision in a trust instrument authorising the remuneration of a trustee for his care and trouble often permitting a trustee who is a solicitor, a literary executor or other professional person to charge for professional services (and in some cases business services generally).
Private trust: see Trusts.
Public trust: see Trusts.
Settled land: land held or deemed to be held on trust (usually referred to as a settlement) subject to the terms of the Settled Land Act 1925. Trusts of this kind may now only be created in exceptional circumstances (see Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 section 2 and Schedule 1). Such trusts were used in relation to land in which two or more beneficial interests were to exist in succession to one another. See Settled Land Act 1925 section 117(1)(xxiv).
Standard investment criteria: see notes on section 4 of the Act.
Statutory owner: a person having the powers of an immediate beneficiary of settled land, where the beneficiary himself is under 18 or there is no immediate beneficiary (for example, in a discretionary settlement in which no beneficiary has been appointed). The statutory owner is either the person of full age on whom the powers are conferred by the settlement; the trustees of the settlement; or, in a settlement made by will on a beneficiary under 18, the testator’s personal representatives until the property is vested in the tenant for life.
Tenant for life (life tenant): a person owning land for an equitable interest that subsists for the whole of his life but terminates on his death. The Settled Land Act 1925 lays down the statutory powers of a tenant for life.
Testamentary Trusts: trusts established under a will.
Trustee de son tort: a person unconnected with a trust who takes upon himself to act as a trustee. He is thereafter liable, as if he had been appointed a trustee.
Trustee function of the donor: a trustee function of the donor is one the donor has as a sole trustee or one he or she exercises jointly with fellow trustees.
Trust and trustee: a trustee is a person who has property or rights (trust property or assets) which he holds or is bound to exercise for or on behalf of another or others, or for the accomplishment of some particular purpose or purposes. He or she is said to hold the property on trust for that other or others, or for that purpose or purposes.
Trust corporation: a trust corporation is one of certain companies with a large paid up capital, or one of certain officials. The most commonly encountered trust corporation is perhaps an executor and trustee company owned by one of the major banks or financial institutions. The term is defined in the Trustee Act 1925 (section 68(1) paragraph (18) which definition was extended by Law of Property (Amendment) Act 1926 section 3).
Trust Fund: see section 39(1) of the Act.
Trust instrument: the document setting out the terms of the trust.
Trust of land: a trust of land is any trust of property which consists of or includes land subject to exceptions for settled land and land to which the University and College Estates Act 1925 applies (Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 section 1).
Trust property or assets: see trust and trustee.
Trustee: see trust and trustee.
Trustee function: means the trusts, powers and discretions vested in the donor as trustee (Trustee Act 1925 section 25(1); Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 section 9(1).
Trusts: may be private or public (charitable). A private trust is a trust for the benefit of an individual or class, irrespective of any benefit which may be conferred on the public at large. A public trust is a trust whose object is to promote the public welfare, even if it incidentally confers a benefit on an individual or class. Charitable trusts are public trusts solely and exclusively for purposes that the law regards as charitable. In this sense, a purpose is charitable only if it is for the furtherance of religion, for the advancement of education, for the relief of poverty, or for other purposes beneficial to the community. Charitable trust is defined in section 39(1) of the Act.
Ultra vires: an act is ultra vires if it is in excess of the powers of the person doing the act.
Will: a document by which a person (called the testator) appoints executors to administer his estate after his death, and directs the manner in which it is to be distributed to the beneficiaries he specifies.
