Trust instrument

Historically, the concept of a trust is the intervention of the courts of equity to prevent a legal owner treating the property as beneficially his own; provided that state of affairs exists, a trust arises notwithstanding any lack of formality in relation to the form of the trust instrument.

[1] Some slightly unusual practices have arisen in relation to the drafting of trust instruments which, again, are rigidly adhered to by professionals in many common-law countries (although not the U.S.A.).

For example, trust deeds will generally avoid all punctuation (including full stops) - to avoid confusion, all new sentences commence with a new, numbered, paragraph.

Dates, including years, are conventionally spelled out in words rather than using figures.

Most jurisdictions do not require trust instruments to be publicly filed (in contrast to wills).