Generally speaking, there are no strictures as to who may be a beneficiary of a trust; a beneficiary can be a minor, or under a mental disability (in fact many trusts are created specifically for persons with those legal disadvantages).
From the perspective of the trustees' duties, it is most common to differentiate between: Where a trust gives rise to sequential interests, from a tax perspective (and also from the point of view of trustee's duties), it is often necessary to differentiate beneficiaries sequentially, between: For the purposes of various exercise of beneficiaries' rights, it is often necessary to distinguish between: The nature of a beneficiary's interest in the trust fund varies according to the type of trust.
[1] Similarly, where a trust gives rise to successive interest, the title of a remainderman is a prospective, or contingent, interest; although unlike a discretionary beneficiary, this is still a species of property that can be dealt with, much in the same way as a contingent or prospective debt.
Tax planning usually plays a considerable role relative to the use of trusts.
They can sell it, assign it, exchange it, release it,[4] mortgage it, and do most other things that they could do with a chose in action.