In his will, Colin leaves 100,000 to the Hillingbridge Tennis Club, an unincorporated association, to enable it to build an extension to its existing pavilion. The money is paid to Morris, the treasurer of the club, who puts it into a specially opened

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A purpose trust involves trustees, as legal owners of assets being under an equitable obligation to use them specifically for a purpose, rather than for beneficiaries as equitable owners. However if the purpose is not a charitable one, a settlor would need to overcome a number of obstacles before the trust will be a valid purpose trust.

The requirements of certainty or intentions and certainty of subject matter are the same for all trusts.  The certainty of objects involves the definition of the relevant purpose, which must be certain enough for the courts to be able to control.

The beneficiary principle will be fulfilled if there is a human beneficiary, who can both apply to the court for equity against the legal owner and benefit from enforcing the trust.

 ‘Trusts of imperfect obligation’ provide an exception to the beneficiary rule. These are only likely to apply in cases of trust which are established by will.

In REASTOR a number of cases were distinguished as being exceptional- Where the trust is for an animal, it must be clearly identifiable and the same rule also applies to monuments.

Such trusts may also be enforced by a residuary lettagee. So a specific gift may be subject to negative enforcement in that a residuary beneficiary can claim on resulting trust if the purpose is not carried out. It was presumed because they would be entitled to the surplus, they would not want the fund to be spent frivolously, because this will affect the amount they ultimately receive as indirect beneficiaries.

However because these are anomalous cases the courts do not always apply the same principles. For instance in RE DEAN the courts allowed the trust even though it did not express a residue estate. However because this overlooks the beneficiary principle, it is unlikely that courts will apply such a badly decided case.

It may not be appropriate to enact a will for the purpose of extending the building because although the court will not object to a trust for a monument, it will not compel trustee to perform the purpose should they refuse to do so, the fund will simply return to the donor on a resulting trust.

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More broadly in Re DENLEY the beneficiary principle is confined to trusts which are abstract or impersonal, where the objection is not that there is a purpose. Persons who directly or indirectly benefit have locus standi to sue to enforce the trust, even though they are not beneficiaries in the sense of being equitable owners.

However there needs to be equal certainty of the persons able to enforce as for a trust for those persons and must be a device through appointment in the trust document of an enforcer or protector.

If the trust involves holding capital ...

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