GLOSSARY
Constructive trust definition
/kənˈstrʌktɪv/ /trʌst/
What does Constructive trust mean?
A trust imposed on a person who holds the title to the property against his intention.
A constructive trust arises when, although there is no express trust affecting specific property, equity considers that the legal owner should be treated as a trustee of an interest in it for another. This happens, for example, where one who is already a trustee takes advantage of his position to obtain a new legal interest in the property, as where a trustee of a leasehold takes a new lease in his own name, or acquires the freehold reversion. A constructive trust attaches by law to specific property which is neither expressly subject to any trusts nor subject to a resulting trust but which is held by a person in circumstances where it would be inequitable to allow him to assert full beneficial ownership of the property. Such a person will often hold other property in a fiduciary capacity and it will be by virtue of his ownership of or dealings with that fiduciary property that he acquired the specific property subject to the
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