Especially when people claim that they have a share in a trust (they don’t, as trusts don’t have ‘shares’) but their inside-own-head definition of ‘share’ means they think they have a right to benefit from the trust. Unfortunately, the reality often is, they don’t.
What they have is permission given to the trustee to give them some benefit from the trust if the trustee feels like doing so - and that permission can be revoked or just not exercised. The benefit, any benefit, is NOT guaranteed.
But they still use the word ‘share’ to describe their situation. Its not accurate, but who actually cares what reality is anyway? Not the lawyers, not the accountants. And they pay me money to explain this sort of thing to our clients. And sometimes to accountants and lawyers.
Yeah, I run into this all the time with legalese.
Especially when people claim that they have a share in a trust (they don’t, as trusts don’t have ‘shares’) but their inside-own-head definition of ‘share’ means they think they have a right to benefit from the trust. Unfortunately, the reality often is, they don’t.
What they have is permission given to the trustee to give them some benefit from the trust if the trustee feels like doing so - and that permission can be revoked or just not exercised. The benefit, any benefit, is NOT guaranteed.
But they still use the word ‘share’ to describe their situation. Its not accurate, but who actually cares what reality is anyway? Not the lawyers, not the accountants. And they pay me money to explain this sort of thing to our clients. And sometimes to accountants and lawyers.