Trusts Law

Trusts Law on the Durham University LLB Law (Year 2). The body of principles that supplements the common law — above all the trust, the most important contribution of English law to private-law thinking.

The nature of equity and the trust

Equity explains why legal ownership need not exhaust private law’s account of entitlement.

34 min

The three certainties

Certainty is the doctrinal threshold between moral aspiration and enforceable equitable obligation.

34 min

Formalities and secret trusts

Equity polices form without allowing statutory formalities to become instruments of fraud.

39 min

Constitution of trusts

Constitution asks when equity treats intention as legally vested rather than merely promissory.

39 min

Resulting trusts

Resulting trusts expose equity’s insistence that beneficial ownership must be justified, not assumed.

34 min

Constructive trusts — common intention and the family home

Common intention constructive trusts translate domestic contributions into proprietary shares, but only imperfectly.

38 min

Proprietary estoppel

Equity’s most flexible response to broken property expectations and unconscionable reliance.

32 min

Charitable trusts

Charity is trust law’s public-facing exception to the ordinary demands of private benefit.

36 min

Non-charitable purpose trusts

Austere doctrine, narrow exceptions, and the enduring force of the beneficiary principle.

35 min

Trustees' duties — loyalty, care, investment

Trusteeship is disciplined by loyalty, prudence, and accountable stewardship of another’s property.

35 min

Trustees' powers and the beneficiary principle

Trustee powers are legitimate only where fiduciary discretion remains answerable to beneficiaries.

31 min

Variation of trusts

Variation reconciles settlor autonomy with the practical need to adapt trusts across generations.

35 min

Breach of trust and equitable compensation

Equitable compensation restores the trust estate, but only for loss properly attributable to breach.

33 min

Tracing and knowing receipt

Tracing identifies value; knowing receipt fixes personal liability for unconscientious retention of misapplied assets.

37 min

Dishonest assistance

Dishonest assistance fixes personal liability on the accessory who consciously facilitates fiduciary wrongdoing.

38 min

Fiduciary relationships outside trust

Fiduciary liability polices disloyal power, not every relationship of trust or commercial dependence.

41 min