E&T

Institutional

Resulting Trusts

CICTs

Express Trusts

Limitations

Establishing Liability

Personal

Tracing/Following & Claiming

  • can be for both personal and proprietary claims

Carrying out the Trust

Stranger liability (constructive trustees liable to account for loss/profits) *what is the relationship with CT?

Tracing

Knowing Receipt

Dishonest Assistance

Breach

Breach of Trust

Breach of Fiduciary Duty

  • not every breach of duty by a fiduciary is a breach of fiduciary duty (Bristol and West Building Society v Mothew [1998] Ch 1 at 16C)

Locus standi

  • genuine interest

Other trusts

Executory trusts: incompletely constituted (e.g. stipulation of certain terms to be fulfilled) but not imperfectly constituted (violation of certainty of intention/objects)

Bare trusts: holding of title

Passive trusts: ministerial duties

Trustee

Other legal concepts

Trust vs contract

Remedial

Constructive Trusts

Proprietary Estoppel

Remedial Constructive Trusts

Certainty

Objects

Intention

Subject Matter

Beneficiary Principle

Illegality

Sham

Perpetuity

Irreducible core (public policy)

Exemption clauses

Circumventing the Beneficiary Principle

Other organisations

Pure Purposes Trusts

Established exceptions

Charitable Trusts: Pemsel's Four Heads of Charity

  • relief of poverty
  • advancement of religion
  • advancement of education
  • other purposes beneficial to the community

Re Denley's Trusts: factual benefit sufficient (cf. legal benefit)

Construction of Trust Terms

Re Sanderson Trusts

dead hand control

Trustee Duties

Duty of the trustee to keep accounts of the trust and to allow the beneficiaries to inspect them as requested. This accounting procedure serves two primary purposes: (a) “the informative purpose of allowing the beneficiaries to know the status of the fund and what transformations it has undergone”, and (b) a “substantive purpose… [to ensure] that any personal liability a custodial fiduciary may have arising out of maladministration is ascertained and determined” ... More will also likely be required of a professional trustee, as compared to a non-professional trustee who may be granted “fair and reasonable allowances” (Snell's Equity cited in Lalwani SGHC)

Statutory duties: Trustees Act

Duty of prudence

Portfolio theory

Duty to avoid indeliberate decision-making

Enforcer (rejected)

Beneficiary

Trustee

Following

Equity

Common law

Anomalous Trusts

Unincorporated Associations

Political parties

Contract-holding theory

Trust Powers & Powers

Duty of even-handedness/impartiality

  • rules of apportionment/allocation of expense rules

Court's orders

Dispositive: can alter (vest/divest) beneficial interests

  • powers of appointment
  • power to invade capital

Administrative/managerial

Trustees Act: powers have all powers to act unless inconsistent with terms of Trust (s 2(2))

Innominate (can be (n)either dispositive or admnistrative)

  • revocation
  • amendment
  • veto of trustee determinations

Modification & Termination

Vitiating factors:

  • fraud
  • undue influence
  • duress

Modification

Duty of honesty and loyalty

  • above personal interest
  • no personal gain/self-dealing
  • objective/disinterested

Settlor

Letter of wishes

Reservation of powers

  • investment?

Duty to invest

Delegation

TA s 60: excusing breach where trustee acted (1) honestly and (2) reasonably and (3) ought fairly be excused

Trustees and third parties

Certainty as to identity

Certainty as to extent of beneficial interest

Curing uncertainty:

  • arbiter

Conceptual & evidential certainty

Termination

Saunders v Vautier

  • of age
  • of sound mind
  • all beneficiaries identified?
  • vested interest?

Terms:

  • express
  • implied

Illegality

Type A (presumed)

Type B (automatic)

Chambers' "absence of intention" thesis

Unjust enrichment (rejected)

Rebutting presumption: intention to benefit/gift

Quistclose Trust

Purchase money RT

Express or resulting?

Initial failure

Subsequent failure

Dissolution of pension funds/UAs

Direct evidence

Presumption

How is the property held?

Pallant v Morgan equity

Chan Yuen Lan

Stack v Dowden

Theory

Liability to account as a constructive trustee (Class 2):

  • exposure to equitable remedies due to participation in unlawful misapplication of trust assets

"Real" contructive trustees (Class 1):

  • lawful assumption of fiduciary duties without formal appointment

Conscience affected

Receipt on fraud/mistake

Transfer on condition

Breach of fiduciary duty

Limits

Claiming

Remedies

Equitable tracing (taking an account)

Account of profits

Unjust enrichment

Overreaching

  • incident of powers of disposition

Trust property

Traceable proceeds

Property

Unjust enrichment

Defences

Bona fide purchaser of legal interest for value without notice

Change of position (unjust enrichment only; not proprietary claim)

Proprietary

Inequitable to trace

Bona fide purchaser of legal interest for value without notice

Property used to improve land

Pre-acquired property

Property ceases to exist

Tracing in equity

Fiduciary relationship/prior equitable interest

Clean substitutions

Mixed fund

Mixed with trustee's own property

Mixed with innocent volunteer's property

Bank accounts

Swollen assets theory

Clean substitutions

Mixed fund

  • cannot trace "through"
  • can trace "into" and "to"

Criticisms & reform

FHR classification

(1) asset held under a trust (express, resulting or constructive) or subject to a fiduciary duties; (2) disposal of asset in breach of trust or fiduciary duty; (3) beneficial receipt by recipient; (4) the recipient having such knowledge of the nature of the asset or the disposal of it or the existence of the trust as to make it unconscionable for him to retain the value of his receipt.

(1) a trust or fiduciary duty (2) breach of trust or fiduciary duty; (2) procurement or inducement or assistance; (4) which is dishonest.

Others:

  • proprietary injunction
  • personal injunction
  • tracing order
  • imposition of RT or CT (even RCT)
  • common law remedies (e.g. damages for conversion)

Vandepitte procedure

Defences:

  • consent, acquiescence, waiver and estoppel
  • laches
  • hardship
  • clean hands

Election between alternative remedies

Falsification

Surcharge

Equitable tracing