How does the law classify trusts? Are there ambiguities and inconsistencies in the classifications?

What is a trust? At its simplest, a trust is an equitable device in which rights, either personal or proprietary are held by one person on behalf of another. The law has classified trusts in different cross-cutting ways for different purposes. By the way, why create a trust? There is number of reasons such as the interested recipient of rights could be incapable of managing them, they allow the enjoyment of rights to be split on a plane of time or/and commercial arrangement. A trust cannot fit all the purpose or reasons of creating trust. So, there is numbers of different trust which classified by law. First, the trusts which I would like to discuss about are fixed and discretionary trusts. There is some distinctions between fixed and discretionary trusts. A fixed trust is one in which the interests of the different beneficiaries or charitable purposes are determined at the outset; the trustees have no decisions to make as to how he should distribute the trust rights. Whereby, discretionary trust is one where the trustees have such a dispositive discretion. The fixed or discretionary nature of a trust turns upon whether the trustees have discretion in his distribution of the trust rights. Fixed does not mean the actual amount that a beneficiary will receive is determinable from the outset. For example, in a trust of shares where the income of the shares go to Paul as long as he lives and the capital to Peter, it is impossible to tell how much Paul will get at the outset, for that, it will depends the value of the dividend shares over time. But, the trust is still fixed, for whatever dividends are earned on the shares, the trustees have no choice but to transfer that income to Paul. However, a trust also can include both discretionary and fixed elements. For example, you may settle a trust of shares in a company, with the income of the shares to be distributed as it arises amongst your children, Tom, Dick and Mary, in such shares as your trustees, in their discretion, decide, and with the capital to be distributed in equal shares to Tom, Dick and Mary once the youngest turns 18 years of age. The distribution of income is discretionary, but the capital interests are fixed. Next, the distinction between express and constructive trusts focuses on how trusts arise, express trusts arising because right-holders intentionally create them, conferring powers and imposing duties on trustees, and giving rights to beneficiaries. By Contrast, constructive trusts are imposed on right-holders by courts. Constructive trusts, therefore, are not-declared trust. But to say that they arise for reasons not involving a declaration trust is not particularly helpful, for it gives only

a negative description, telling us why the trust does not arise rather than why it does. As one of the academics working with one of the best attempt so far is that of the late Professor Birks, who said that all private law rights (and a trust creates private law right in its beneficiaries) owe their origin to one of the 4 events: manifestations of consent, wrongdoing (breaches of duty), unjust enrichment, and other miscellaneous events. In the categories of wrongdoing, this has applied to the case of A-G for Hong Kong v Reid. Thus, in Chase Manhattan case as a response to the unjust enrichment of the defendant caused by its receipt of the mistakenly paid US$ 2 million. As to the heading miscellaneous other events, by far the majority of constructive trusts fall within it. However, the question is in all cases of constructive trusts is whether the courts are right to create trusts in these instances. The distinction between testamentary and inter vivos trusts is straightforward whereby testamentary trust is an express trust which is set out in a persons will, and comes into operation when the testator dies and his will is executed by his executors. By contrast, an inter vivos trust is one which is created by the settlor when alive. The category of implied trust is probably redundant. Purpose trusts are distinguished from typical trusts for beneficiaries, and the public or private trusts distinction with respect to purpose trusts indicated the mechanism of enforcement and charitable, public-serving substance of the former. Are there any ambiguities and inconsistencies in the classification? This point to be addressed focuses on the problems of the classifications the law has traditionally adopted such as implied and resulting trusts have some problems. Implied trusts as a classic example of ambiguities term, where, resulting trusts for the uncertain scope of the terms, which, the difficulty of finding a unifying feature. Next, the category constructive trust has also historically been used to group particular sorts of trust together which have disparate rationales and bases. In conclusions, trusts have been classified according to its different purposes but also some of the trusts have some ambiguous and inconsistencies in the classifications.