Trust estate

“ If the language conveys to the trustee and his heirs for ever, while the trust requires a more limited estate either in quantity or duration, only the latter will vest.
Mr. Perry, in his work on Trusts, supports by a very full array of authorities these two propositions in regard to the construction of instruments out of which trust estates arise: 1 'Whenever a trust is created, a legal estate sufficient for the purposes of the trust shall, if possible, be implied in the trustee, whatever may be the limitations in the instrument, whether to him and his heirs or not.' 2. ”

“ If trustees, having a large estate to invest and accumulate for the benefit of an infant, for a number of years, will keep no books of account, make out no annual or other account of their trust estate; if they risk the trust funds in their own speculations ”

“ Here is a special trust, ministerial in its character, (Lewin on Trusts, 21, 22,) in which the trustee holds the legal estate with a power to sell and convey for the benefit of the debtor and creditor. He takes no interest personally in the land. He has no right to the possession, except for the mere purposes of sale; he has no right to the rents, issues, profits, or other income from the land. In all this he differs from a mortgagee. ”

“ Said grantor has created the foregoing trusts to provide for the support and maintenance of the beneficiaries entitled to share in the income of said trust estate, and the said beneficiaries shall have no power to anticipate, assign, or otherwise dispose of or encumber their respective interests in said trust estate, and the same shall not be subject to be taken from them by process of law. ”

“ At present I do not think it necessary to say more, than that if the trust be utterly void, then the heirs would be operation of law take the legal estate stripped of the trust. If the trust be good, then it is knit to the estate, and the heirs take it subject to the trust. ”

“ When a trust has been created, it is to be held large enough to enable the trustee to accomplish the objects of its creation. If a fee simple estate be necessary, it will be held to exist though no words of limitation be found in the instrument by which the title was passed to the trustee, and the estate created. ”

“ In order to ascertain the nature and the time of vesting of their interests, it is important, in the first place, to determine the extent and duration of the trust-estate of the executors and trustees named in the will, bearing in mind the settled rule that whether trustees take an estate in fee depends upon the requirements of the trust, and not upon the insertion of words of inheritance. ”

“ The court has the power to fix the compensation of the trustee, [8] to require him to take over from the trust investments improperly made and to restore the amount expended for them to the trust estate, [9] to surcharge him with losses incurred, to allow him his proper expenses, to find against him a balance due the estate, and to make the balance found due a lien upon his real estate. ”

“ Certain friends are appointed executors of the will.
He directs his executors to set aside certain securities of great value, which he gives to a trustee, and directs the income therefrom to be paid to his wife during her life, and upon her death, the principal becomes a part of the residuary estate. A similar provision is made for his daughters. Upon the death of the daughters, however, leaving issue, the property held in trust shall become absolutely the property of such issue in equal shares. ”

“ It is a well-settled rule that a trustee can make no profit out of his trust. The rule in such cases springs from his duty to protect the interests of the estate, and not to permit his personal interest to in any wise conflict with his duty in that respect. ”

“ Do they have power to sell? We must first always look at the terms of the trust. If we are dealing with a trustee under a will we look at the will to see what powers the testator gave him. If we are looking at a question of a trust under a deed, we look at the deed, and the right of an executor to [Pg 342] sell real estate similarly depends on whether any such power has been given him in the will. ”

“ Except in the case of charitable trusts, the cestui que trust must be a definite person. A trust, for instance, merely for keeping up family tombs is void. Alteration of the trust estate by appointment of a new trustee could up to 1860 only be made where the instrument creating the trust gave a power to so appoint, or by order of the Court of Chancery. ”

“ These are, that persons dealing with a trustee must look to him for payment of their demands, and that, ordinarily, the creditor has no right to resort to the trust estate to enforce his demand for advances made or services rendered for the benefit of the trust estate. ”

“ It makes no difference, that the estate is holden for certain trusts; the legal estate is still theirs. They have a right in the property, and they have a right of visiting and superintending the trust ”

“ When the party puts his right to sell, not upon an honest exercise of opinion at the time of sale, but upon a distinct anterior transaction, invalid and incomplete, by which he became clothed with the beneficial interest of the estate? When he claims to be, not the disinterested trustee, selling the estate, but the trustee purchasing by exchange the trust fund, and thus entitled to deal with it according to his own discretion, and for his own private accommodation, as absolute owner? ”

“ Under the second section of said act, all the rights and duties are conferred upon him which would have devolved upon the trustees under the act of 1814, by the fifth section of which they were to lease from time to time, receive rents and profits, and do other acts requiring a legal estate.
4th. A legal estate in trust may be implied even in private instruments, when the acts to be done are such as to render it proper and essential that the trustees should have the legal estate, and not a mere trust power. ”

“ Where lands are conveyed to trustees without any expressed or manifest object, requiring the separation of the legal and equitable estates and the beneficial enjoyment continues from the first in the same persons or their privies, and there is nothing in this enjoyment inconsistent with the outstanding of the legal estate, no lapse of time will establish the presumption of a conveyance by the trustee of the legal estate to the cestui que trust. ”

“ In fact, the purpose of this settlor as expressed in his trust papers was to make 'provision for any lawful issue' he might 'leave at the time of his death as well as provide an income for himself for life.' This paper, labeled a trust, but providing for all the substantial purposes of a will, was intended to and did postpone until the settlor's death the right of his relatives to possess and enjoy his property. There may be trust instruments that fall more clearly within the class intended to be treated as substitutes for wills by the 'possession or enjoyment' clause, but we doubt it. ”

“ Spiegel's Estate, 7 Cir., 159 F.2d 257, 259.↑ 'Where property is given in trust for one beneficiary for life and to another beneficiary in remainder, and before the termination of the trust the latter beneficiary dies intestate and without heirs or next of kin, it would seem that his interest passes to the state, and that a resulting trust will not arise in favor of the settlor or his estate. ”

“ The subject-matter of the trust in this case is the whole estate in its entirety (1) for the common benefit of all the creditors; and (2) for the common benefit of all the heirs or devisees. Respecting these creditors or devisees in their separate and individual capacity, he is not the representative or guardian of their person or property, and can exercise no legal control over either. ”

“ In making or having title made to the farm you should have it made so that the trust vested in the executors by father can be discharged and all your interest in the moneys arising from the sales of real estate can be invested in that property in pursuance of the will, otherwise the interest arising out of this property here would have to continue in the possession of the executor as trustee, which is not desirable. ”

“ In what are called 'business trusts' the object is not to hold and conserve particular property, with incidental powers, as in the traditional type of trusts, but to provide a medium for the conduct of a business and sharing its gains. Thus a trust may be created as a convenient method by which persons become associated for dealings in real estate, the development of tracts of land, the construction of improvements, and the purchase, management, and sale of properties ”

“ By his will the father bequeathed his residuary estate in trust to divide the trust fund into as many shares as he should leave children surviving. To his son, the New York decedent, he gave a life estate in one share and a general power to dispose of that share 'by will'. ”

“ The power is given the daughter to dispose of this property by her last will and testament, and if this right is not exercised, the property is to pass to her issue in equal shares.
Full power is given the executors to sell or dispose of the estate at their discretion. He directs that if any residue of the estate remain after the devises, trusts and legacies specifically set forth, have been satisfied, that such excess be divided into two equal shares and held as a trust fund for his daughters. ”

“ Looking, then, at the instrument as complete in its directions and limitations in the settlement of the estate, and as presenting the case of an executed trust, the difficulty set up against the complainants when claiming under marriage articles disappears; for, being the beneficial owners, and vested with the equitable title, a court of equity will interpose, and compel the trustee, or any one standing in that relation to the estate, to vest them with the legal title. ”

“ Where the author of a trust is possessed of the legal interest in the property, a clear declaration of trust contained in or accompanying a deed or act which passes the legal estate will create a perfect executed trust, and will be established against its author and all subsequent volunteers claiming under him. ”

“ It follows that the cestui que trust took the full interest and estate as the land, subject only to the outstanding legal title, and such estate and interest was necessarily subject to sale under execution.
Where a grant or devise is made of the rents, issues and profits of an estate, the legal estate being vested in a trustee, with a condition annexed, that they shall not be subject to present or future debts, whether the estate granted or devised be an estate for life or in fee, the condition is void as against public policy. ”

“ Our attention here is directed toward the proper valuation for federal estate tax purposes of the corpus of an inter vivos trust where the transfer was intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after death and where the settlor retained a life estate in the trust income and a reversionary interest in the corpus. ”

“ The trustee’s estate is not enlarged; it is only his liability that has changed. He holds the legal estate as he held it before; but the “equitable estate” is extinct.
This becomes important in cases like In re Van Hagan. [3] Here the testator gave to his mother a general power of appointment over certain real estate, and provided that if this power should not be exercised the estate should go to C. The mother, by her will, gave the property in question to certain trustees in trust for one G, who died during the testator’s lifetime. ”

“ One of two brothers, partners in business, died, leaving a will, by which he directed his debts to be paid, and devised his real estate in trust with power of sale, and appointed his widow executrix and trustee. ”

“ To vest property under a will or deed is desirable. To vest property u der a trust may not be. It is more reasonable to return trust property to the settlor on failure of the trust than to have it go to the heirs of the beneficiary.
From a reading of the trust instrument involved in the instant case, it is manifest that the settlor did not intend to grant his children the power to dispose of their respective shares should they predecease the settlor without issue. The settlor specifically named as beneficiaries of the trust his children and grandchildren. ”

“ Fearne to the effect that a trust or use created by deed will often be held to create an estate in the heirs named which cannot be cut off by the act of the tenant for life, when the same offect would not be given to an estate created by like language in a devise. ”

“ The general rule is that when a trustee unequivocally repudiates the trust, and claims to hold the estate as his own, and such repudiation and claim are brought to the knowledge of the cestui que trust in such manner that he is called upon to assert his rights, the Statute of Limitations will begin to run against him from the time such knowledge is brought home to him, and not before. ”

“ In some States which formerly authorised trust companies to insure the fidelity of persons in positions of trust, or to guarantee titles to real estate, the more recent laws do not permit the combination of such business with the business of a trust company. ”