After all my years of learning different parts of the law and the principles that govern them, I have come to the conclusions I am writing about. For example, you want to be a trustee of something that you believe will fix your situation, whatever that situation may be.
So you step into this role of trustee, what do you do then? Most do not even know how to manage a trust. I know when I first started learning trust law I realized this for myself. I did not understand the principles of agency. The Trustee is just an agent for the trust. People do not realize when it comes to the fiction world there are 3 parties involved in the typical transaction.
Let’s look at the setting up of the trust. There are three parties involved. (Now before you say yeah we know look at the bigger picture.) You have a grantor, trustee, and beneficiary. But, what are those roles? They equate to this formula, depending on the type of trust.
1. The Trustee = Agent. Depending on the type of trust, the trustee can be a general agent, special agent, or universal agent.
2. The Grantor = Principal, again depending on the trust. The grantor still can have some decision-making power after the creation of the trust. And, because of the power the trustee still answers to the grantor.
3. The Beneficiary = Third party. The third-party has next to no power over the transaction unless there is a breach of some type of fiduciary duty.
This is the case for pretty much any transaction in this system we live in. The problem is that people do not understand what property is. They have the mentality that they have to “own” it, whatever that “it” is.
The legal understanding of property is as follows:
The legal definition of property most often refers not to a particular physical object, but rather to the legal bundle of rights recognized in that object, which bundle of rights includes the rights to possess, use, and dispose of a particular article. The term “property” embodies more than just physical, corporeal assets; it can include intangible entities, such as rights and interests. As a matter of legal definition, “property” refers not to a particular material object, but to the right and interest in an object; as to a thing, “property” does not consist merely in its ownership or possession, but also in the lawful, unrestricted right of its use, enjoyment, and disposal. In its precise legal sense, property is nothing more than a collection of rights; indeed, “property,” in law, is not the material object itself, but is the right and interest or domination rightfully obtained over such object, with the unrestricted right to its use, enjoyment, and disposition. The right to exclude others, as well as their property, is one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights that are commonly characterized as property. While ownership of real property does not always mean absolute dominion, the right to exclude persons is a fundamental aspect of private property ownership, and inherent in one’s ownership of real property is the right to exclude uninvited visitors. Ownership of property implies the right of possession and control, and includes the right to exclude others; thus, the true owner of land exercises full dominion and control over it and possesses the right to expel trespassers. Property has also been described as the unrestricted and exclusive right to a thing, the right to dispose of it in every legal way, to possess it, use it, and to exclude everyone else from interfering with it. The term is generally used in this sense in the federal and state constitutional guarantees against deprivation of property without due process of law, and as so used, the word signifies the sum of all the rights and powers incident to ownership.
Property interests are not created by the Federal Constitution, but rather by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law.
Generally, the common law concept of “property” refers to the right and interest that a person has in an object, which extends beyond ownership and possession to include the lawful, unrestricted right of use, enjoyment, and disposal of the object. In contemporary jurisprudence, “property” refers to the various incorporeal ownership rights in a res, such as the right to possess, to enjoy the income from it, to alienate, or to recover ownership from one who has improperly obtained title to the res, as well as to the actual physical object of these rights. 63C Am. Jur. 2d Property § 1
So Property in its simplest definition is rights and interest, not the tangible item. So when it comes to the tangible item, you may not be the only “person” that has a right and/or interest in the transaction. There can be a minimum of three parties that have a right and/or interest in the transaction. Those are the agent, principal, and third party.