Legal Definitions - Precatory Trust

A precatory trust is a type of trust that is created with language that expresses a future intent or a wish, but in which the court still finds legally enforceable duties. Normally, a trust must have language that expresses a present intent to create legally enforceable duties on the trustee in order to be valid. However, in some cases, the court will still find intent to create legally enforceable duties in a trust that uses precatory language.

For example, if a father creates a trust for his son and uses language like "I hope my son will use this money for his education," the court may still find that the father intended to create legally enforceable duties on the trustee (in this case, the son) to use the money for education. This is because of the familial relationship between the father and son, which suggests that the father intended for the trust to be more than just a suggestion or wish.

Another example of a precatory trust might be a trust created by a wealthy philanthropist who wants to leave money to a charity, but uses language like "I hope the charity will use this money to help the homeless." Again, the court may find that the philanthropist intended to create legally enforceable duties on the charity to use the money for the specified purpose.

In both of these examples, the court is looking beyond the specific language used in the trust to determine the intent of the person who created it. If the court finds that there was a clear intent to create legally enforceable duties, then the trust will be valid and enforceable.