Many people have heard about family trust and being told that one should have a family trust. After being told by others that one should have a family trust, people start to think that it seems many friends of mine having their family trust, I should also have one.

But they do not really know why they should have a trust. They also do not understand once they transferred their property to the trust, the property will no longer belongs to them.

The core of family trust is “trust”. The settlor trusted the trustee(s) with the duties and obligations that the trustee(s) will hold the property the settlor transferred to the trust for the sole benefit of the beneficiaries.

The trustees legally own the trust property, but the end owners are the beneficiaries. Once a property has been transferred to a trust, this property no longer belongs to the settlor. The legal ownership is transferred to the trustee.

But the trustee does not enjoy the benefit of the property, the beneficiary does.

Put it in a simple way, person A has $100,000 cash. He created a trust and appointed person B to the trustee and name person C the only final beneficiary. He then gifted the money to the trust he created. By doing so, he gave the money to person B. But person B can only use the money for the final beneficiary – person C.