Resulting Trusts: an Interesting Principle of Equity

Abstract

Law of trusts, developed from the equity principle of England and other common law countries, has been welcoming by many countries of civil law jurisdiction including Thailand. At present, trust law under Thai legal system may be limited only to transactions in capital or stock market, it may extend to other activities in the future due to its nature of fairness. In this article, the author would like to introduce a resulting trust, as it is an interesting principle to fill the gap when the express trust is not valid by such reason as a lack of express intention of the settlor, a lack of certainty of objects intended to be a trust or the transfer of property as a trust is not completed. In that case, it is considered that there is a resulting trust and the beneficial interest results to (or springs back to or jumps back to) the settlor who created the trust. Resulting trusts have been applied in some trusts of the family home or even in a commercial context such as a Quistclose trust. In this regard, the author wishes the common law experience in resulting trusts would be beneficial for other jurisdiction as far as it is not contrary to its legal approach.