Beneficiary in the context of "Equitable interest"

A trust is a legal relationship in which the owner of property, or any transferable right, gives it to another to manage and use solely for the benefit of a designated person. In the English common law, the party who entrusts the property is known as the "settlor," the party to whom it is entrusted is known as the "trustee," the party for whose benefit the property is entrusted is known as the "beneficiary," and the entrusted property is known as the "corpus" or "trust property." A testamentary trust is an irrevocable trust established and funded pursuant to the terms of a deceased person's will. An inter vivos trust is a trust created during the settlor's life.

The trustee is the legal owner of the assets held in trust on behalf of the trust and its beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are equitable owners of the trust property. Trustees have a fiduciary duty to manage the trust for the benefit of the equitable owners. Trustees must provide regular accountings of trust income and expenditures. A court of competent jurisdiction can remove a trustee who breaches their duty. Some breaches can be charged and tried as criminal offenses. A trustee can be a natural person, business entity or public body. A trust in the US may be subject to federal and state taxation. The trust is governed by the terms under which it was created. In most jurisdictions, this requires a contractual trust agreement or deed. It is possible for a single individual to assume the role of more than one of these parties, and for multiple individuals to share a single role. For example, in a living trust it is common for the grantor to be both a trustee and a lifetime beneficiary while naming other contingent beneficiaries.

Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death of an insured person. Depending on the contract, other events such as terminal illness or critical illness can also trigger payment. The policyholder typically pays a premium, either regularly or as one lump sum. The benefits may include other expenses, such as funeral expenses.

Life policies are legal contracts and the terms of each contract describe the limitations of the insured events. Often, specific exclusions written into the contract limit the liability of the insurer; common examples include claims relating to suicide, fraud, war, riot, and civil commotion. Difficulties may arise where an event is not clearly defined, for example, the insured knowingly incurred a risk by consenting to an experimental medical procedure or by taking medication resulting in injury or death.

A benefactor (from Latin bene 'good' and factor 'maker') is a person who gives some form of help to benefit a person, group or organization (the beneficiary), often gifting a monetary contribution in the form of an endowment to help a cause. Benefactors are humanitarian leaders and charitable patrons providing assistance in many forms, such as an alumnus from a university giving back to a college or an individual providing assistance to others.

In trust law, a settlor is a person who settles (i.e. gives into trust) their property for the benefit of the beneficiary. In some legal systems, a settlor is also referred to as a trustor, or occasionally, a grantor or donor. Where the trust is a testamentary trust, the settlor is usually referred to as the testator. The settlor may also be the trustee of the trust (where he declares that he holds his own property on trusts) or a third party may be the trustee (where he transfers the property to the trustee on trusts). In the common law of England and Wales, it has been held, controversially, that where a trustee declares an intention to transfer trust property to a trust of which he is one of several trustees, that is a valid settlement notwithstanding the property is not vested in the other trustees.

Capacity to be a trustee is generally co-extensive with the ability to hold and dispose of a legal or beneficial interest in property. In practice, special considerations arise only with respect to minors and mentally incapacitated persons.

Charitable trusts in English law are a form of express trust dedicated to charitable goals. There are various advantages to charitable trust status, including exemption from most forms of tax and freedom for the trustees not found in other types of English trusts. To be a valid charitable trust, the organization must demonstrate both a charitable purpose and a public benefit. Applicable charitable purposes are normally divided into categories for public benefit, including the relief of poverty, the promotion of education, the advancement of health and saving of lives, the promotion of religion, and all other types of trusts recognized by the law. There is also a requirement that the trust's purposes benefit the public (or some section of the public), and not simply a group of private individuals.

Such trusts will be invalid in several circumstances; charitable trusts are not allowed to be run for profit, nor can they have purposes that are not charitable (unless these are ancillary to the charitable purpose). Additionally, it is considered unacceptable for charitable trusts to campaign for political or legal change, although discussing political issues in a neutral manner is acceptable. Charitable trusts, like other trusts, are administered by trustees, but there is no direct relationship between the trustees and the beneficiaries. This results in two things: firstly, the trustees of a charitable trust have more freedom to act than other trustees, and secondly, beneficiaries cannot bring a court case against the trustees. Instead, the beneficiaries are represented by the Attorney General for England and Wales as parens patriae, who appears on behalf of The Crown.