Beneficiary

Beneficiary, in Anglo-American law, one for whose benefit a trust is created. Beneficiaries of private trusts must be identifiable legal entities (natural persons or corporations) or a class of persons (such as children of the creator of the trust). Whereas the beneficiaries must be described with certainty, provision may be made for the addition of new beneficiaries as persons are born and other events happen, and thus the group may shift in membership from time to time. Beneficiaries of charitable trusts are not identifiable persons, since society is the beneficiary. Thus, in the case of a trust to aid the poor, the individuals chosen yearly to receive trust income are not deemed to be the beneficiaries; rather, society, which is benefitted by the relief of poverty, is the beneficiary.