In the US we’re willing to be fairly imprecise about the notion of legal personality as applied to trusts (and, as it happens, to some other legal constructs).  It’s unremarkable here for trusts of all kinds to have financial accounts titled in their names, for example, and to be treated as the “owner” of property.  As a comment to the Restatement (Third) of Trusts (2003) puts it:

Increasingly, modern common-law and statutory concepts and terminology tacitly recognize the trust as a legal “entity,” consisting of the trust estate and the associated fiduciary relation between the trustee and the beneficiaries. This is increasingly and appropriately reflected both in language (referring, for example, to the duties or liability of a trustee to "the trust") and in doctrine, especially in distinguishing between the trustee personally or as an individual and the trustee in a fiduciary or representative capacity.

In general, our modern statutes relating to business organizations tend to make the matter explicit, whereas with trusts my offhand understanding is that they tend not to—but it is still unremarkable here, regardless, to open a securities account or title real property in the name of a simple personal trust (and for the trust to file a federal or state tax return).  Many details can vary from state to state, which in my view is one of the reasons we can tolerate a fair degree of conceptual imprecision nationwide. 

In writing this message, I didn’t initially set out to promote my own work, but I talk about some unusual features of US legal personality (mainly focused on the LLC and its ability to operate without members, subject solely to a legal instrument or other agreement) in Autonomous Organizations (Cambridge, 2021).

Best,

Shawn

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Shawn Bayern

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Larry & Joyce Beltz Professor of Torts

Florida State University College of Law