The K-Zone: Trust of land

The term `trust of land' can be used in a general sense to mean any Trust that has, or includes, land as its trust property. Until the TrustsOfLandAndAppointmentOfTrusteesAct1996 (TOLATA) came into force, there were two main administrative frameworks for trusts that included land: the SettledLandActSettlement, governed by the SettledLandAct1925, and the TrustForSale, created by the courts. Whether one form existed, or the other, depended on technicalities of the wording of the instrument creating the trust. Rather inconveniently (in modern times, at least), the law presumed a Settled Land Act (SLA) settlement if the settlor did not evince a clear intention to create a trust for sale. So both trusts for sale and SLA settlements were trusts of land in this broad sense.

Since 1997, when TOLATA came into force, there has been only one recognized form of trust that includes land. Consequently the term `trust of land' can also mean a TOLATA trust. This is a rather narrower sense of the term. Unfortunately we still need to be careful whether we are using the term `trust of land' in the broad sense or the narrow sense, because TOLATA allows that existing SLA settlements can continue to exist. So, in short, the term `trust of land' now means either