In some legal systems, a settlor is also referred to as a trustor, or occasionally, a grantor or donor.
[1] Capacity to be a trustee is generally co-extensive with the ability to hold and dispose of a legal or beneficial interest in property.
In practice, special considerations arise only with respect to minors and mentally incapacitated persons.
[c] The words or acts of the settlor must be sufficient to establish an intention that either another person or the settlor himself shall be trustee of the property on behalf of the beneficiary; a general intention to benefit another person on its own is sufficient.
For a settlor to validly create a trust, in most common law legal systems they must satisfy the three certainties, established in Knight v Knight: Where a settlement of property on a third party trustee by a settlor fails, the property is usually said to be held on resulting trusts for the settlor.