A Study On Implied Trust

The trust law, which originated from Britain, has made great contribution both to curb shortcomings of statutory provisions and to achieve equitable judgments in various cases since it was born. Together with express trust, implied trust constitutes the major subject of the trust law. Among others, implied trust arises from judicial interpretation instead of overt manifestation of trust intent.However, Chinese law does not adopt the concept of implied trust, and most provisions of"The Trust law of the People's Republic of China(2001)"aim to regulate the express trust. Generally, implied trust consists of resulting trust and constructive trust and each of them could facilitate the equitable judgments in matters such as the owner of trust upon the termination of an express trust, remedy available to the owner of property. This thesis begins with systematical introduction of trust and implied trust. Then it discusses the necessity of introducing the implied trust by comparing different judgments on the same matter or similar matters in different jurisdictions. Lastly, it analyses the possibility of adopting implied trust in China.Chapter one gives a brief profile of implied trust. It introduces legal principles of trust and implied trust, and makes a comparison between implied trust and express trust in order to see how they differ and how they are alike.Chapter two studies the constructive trust, which is one type of implied trust. It studies the concept, character and classification of constructive trust. The role of constructive trust could be used to regulate the deal of real estate and to perfect the law of restitution.Chapter three makes a research on resulting trust, which is the other type of the implied trust. The resulting trust arises under the four circumstances: purchasing in the name of others; transferring into the names of others; lacking an express trust; failing to dispose of the entire beneficial interest. Then it discusses the necessity of adopting resulting trust: It may solve the disputes on the ownership of the surplus of donated money when the purpose of donation has become impossible. It also may solve couples'economic relationship and alike, for example, the cohabitants'economic relationship. Furthermore, resulting trust can fetch up shortage of expresstrust.Chapter four analyses possible obstacles in adopting implied trust in China and puts forward to some suggestion on overcoming these obstacles.