What happens to the certainty of objects requirement when a trust has no beneficiaries? The answer reveals a distinct drafting challenge: a purpose must be sufficiently ascertainable and workable to tell both the trustee and the court what the trust actually requires.
Introduction:
Ordinarily, in the case of an express trust for persons, certainty of objects is a relatively intuitive inquiry, asking whether the beneficiaries are sufficiently identifiable to permit the trust to be administered and enforced.[1] However, at first glance, purpose trusts seem to circumvent the need for identifiable beneficiaries altogether, given the trustee’s obligation is directed toward a stated purpose rather than any person. As will be examined below, that shift does not eliminate the certainty inquiry altogether.
This entry examines how the certainty of objects requirement is reconceived once a trust is structured around a purpose. It sets out the operative standard, illustrates it against two contrasting examples of purposes that failed, and closes by considering what that standard actually demands of a drafter in practice.
Certainty of Objects Reframed: From Beneficiaries to Purpose
There is an important analytical relationship between the beneficiary principle and the certainty of objects requirement.
Certainty of objects requires that the objects of a trust be sufficiently delineated to allow for trust performance. In the context of a trust for persons, this means the beneficiaries must be identifiable with sufficient precision.[2] In the context of a purpose trust, however, there are no beneficiaries in the conventional sense, the “object” is the purpose itself.
Accordingly, rather than asking whether identifiable persons can be ascertained, the question becomes whether the purpose is defined with sufficient precision to guide the trustee’s administration of the trust property and to permit curial supervision.[3]
The Standard: Ascertainable and Workable
The leading illustration of a purpose failing for lack of certainty can be found in Re Astor’s Settlement Trusts.[4]In this decision, the Court found the impugned purposes to be void on two independent grounds: those being, (1) for want of a beneficiary capable of enforcement; and (2) for uncertainty. The purposes were found to be too abstract because, they were so indefinite the Court was unable to determine whether they had been carried out.[5]
Accordingly, even though the settlor identified a class of ascertainable persons prepared to enforce the arrangement under the Denley principle, the vagueness of “good understanding between nations” doomed the trust as there was no meaningful standard against which a Court could assess whether the trustee had performed the purpose properly.
In Re Endacott, a testator left the residue of his estate to a parish council “for the purpose of providing some useful memorial to myself”.[6] The English Court of Appeal held the gift void, and while the decision is best known in this mini-series for closing the list of anomalous exceptions against further extension, Lord Evershed MR’s reasoning rested equally on a distinct uncertainty holding: a “useful memorial” could be almost anything and the council was given no standard by which to choose among them.[7] As a result, the trust failed not because a memorial to oneself is an illegitimate object, but because the object as drafted gave the trustee no workable content to administer.
Read together, Astor and Endacott demonstrate that uncertainty of purpose is not confined to purposes that are grand or abstract. A modest, personal purpose can be just as fatally vague as a sweeping geopolitical one; what defeats both is the absence of any standard against which performance can be measured.
One Requirement or Two?
The fact that Astor and Endacott were each decided on two grounds, want of a beneficiary and uncertainty of purpose, raises a question the caselaw has never fully resolved: are these genuinely independent requirements, or is uncertainty of purpose simply the beneficiary principle described in different language?
The case for collapsing the two has some academic support. On this view, a purpose trust fails for want of a beneficiary in precisely those cases where the purpose is too vague to be administered in the first place.[8] If that is right, then certainty of purpose is not a second hurdle sitting alongside the beneficiary principle, but the very reason the beneficiary principle bites where it does.
Notwithstanding the appeal of this reasoning, the Courts have not treated the two as interchangeable. Astor itself decided uncertainty as an independent, second ground, not as an explanation for the first, and Ontario Courts assessing purpose trusts continue to ask both questions in sequence rather than treating a finding on one as dispositive of the other.
Final Remarks
Purpose trusts do not eliminate the certainty of objects requirement; they recast it. Where the object is a purpose rather than a beneficiary, the purpose must be sufficiently certain, ascertainable, and workable to guide the trustee’s administration and permit the court to determine whether the trust has been properly performed.
Re Astor’s Settlement Trusts and Re Endacott demonstrate that this requirement applies equally to grand and modest purposes alike. Importantly, certainty of purpose is analytically distinct from the beneficiary principle: the latter concerns who may hold the trustee to account, while the former concerns what the trustee is required to do.
—
[1] Tillsonburg Scout Association v. Scouts Canada, 2020 ONSC 747, at para 33; Rubner v. Bistricer, 2019 ONCA 733, at para 59.
[2] Wai-Keung Kwan v Kalsang, 2025 ONSC 124, at para 113–114.
[3] Re Denley’s Trust Deed, [1969] 1 Ch 373 (Ch D), at 382–383.
[4] Re Astor’s Settlement Trusts, [1952] Ch 534.
[5] Ibid., at 549.
[6] Re Endacott, [1960] Ch 232 (CA).
[7] Ibid., at 246.
[8] On this view, “anomalous exceptions” survive not because they are exempt from the beneficiary principle, but because their narrow specificity happens to make them workable.
Written by: Grant Swedak
Posted on: September 18, 2026
Categories: Commentary, Express Trust Series
What happens to the certainty of objects requirement when a trust has no beneficiaries? The answer reveals a distinct drafting challenge: a purpose must be sufficiently ascertainable and workable to tell both the trustee and the court what the trust actually requires.
Introduction:
Ordinarily, in the case of an express trust for persons, certainty of objects is a relatively intuitive inquiry, asking whether the beneficiaries are sufficiently identifiable to permit the trust to be administered and enforced.[1] However, at first glance, purpose trusts seem to circumvent the need for identifiable beneficiaries altogether, given the trustee’s obligation is directed toward a stated purpose rather than any person. As will be examined below, that shift does not eliminate the certainty inquiry altogether.
This entry examines how the certainty of objects requirement is reconceived once a trust is structured around a purpose. It sets out the operative standard, illustrates it against two contrasting examples of purposes that failed, and closes by considering what that standard actually demands of a drafter in practice.
Certainty of Objects Reframed: From Beneficiaries to Purpose
There is an important analytical relationship between the beneficiary principle and the certainty of objects requirement.
Certainty of objects requires that the objects of a trust be sufficiently delineated to allow for trust performance. In the context of a trust for persons, this means the beneficiaries must be identifiable with sufficient precision.[2] In the context of a purpose trust, however, there are no beneficiaries in the conventional sense, the “object” is the purpose itself.
Accordingly, rather than asking whether identifiable persons can be ascertained, the question becomes whether the purpose is defined with sufficient precision to guide the trustee’s administration of the trust property and to permit curial supervision.[3]
The Standard: Ascertainable and Workable
The leading illustration of a purpose failing for lack of certainty can be found in Re Astor’s Settlement Trusts.[4]In this decision, the Court found the impugned purposes to be void on two independent grounds: those being, (1) for want of a beneficiary capable of enforcement; and (2) for uncertainty. The purposes were found to be too abstract because, they were so indefinite the Court was unable to determine whether they had been carried out.[5]
Accordingly, even though the settlor identified a class of ascertainable persons prepared to enforce the arrangement under the Denley principle, the vagueness of “good understanding between nations” doomed the trust as there was no meaningful standard against which a Court could assess whether the trustee had performed the purpose properly.
In Re Endacott, a testator left the residue of his estate to a parish council “for the purpose of providing some useful memorial to myself”.[6] The English Court of Appeal held the gift void, and while the decision is best known in this mini-series for closing the list of anomalous exceptions against further extension, Lord Evershed MR’s reasoning rested equally on a distinct uncertainty holding: a “useful memorial” could be almost anything and the council was given no standard by which to choose among them.[7] As a result, the trust failed not because a memorial to oneself is an illegitimate object, but because the object as drafted gave the trustee no workable content to administer.
Read together, Astor and Endacott demonstrate that uncertainty of purpose is not confined to purposes that are grand or abstract. A modest, personal purpose can be just as fatally vague as a sweeping geopolitical one; what defeats both is the absence of any standard against which performance can be measured.
One Requirement or Two?
The fact that Astor and Endacott were each decided on two grounds, want of a beneficiary and uncertainty of purpose, raises a question the caselaw has never fully resolved: are these genuinely independent requirements, or is uncertainty of purpose simply the beneficiary principle described in different language?
The case for collapsing the two has some academic support. On this view, a purpose trust fails for want of a beneficiary in precisely those cases where the purpose is too vague to be administered in the first place.[8] If that is right, then certainty of purpose is not a second hurdle sitting alongside the beneficiary principle, but the very reason the beneficiary principle bites where it does.
Notwithstanding the appeal of this reasoning, the Courts have not treated the two as interchangeable. Astor itself decided uncertainty as an independent, second ground, not as an explanation for the first, and Ontario Courts assessing purpose trusts continue to ask both questions in sequence rather than treating a finding on one as dispositive of the other.
Final Remarks
Purpose trusts do not eliminate the certainty of objects requirement; they recast it. Where the object is a purpose rather than a beneficiary, the purpose must be sufficiently certain, ascertainable, and workable to guide the trustee’s administration and permit the court to determine whether the trust has been properly performed.
Re Astor’s Settlement Trusts and Re Endacott demonstrate that this requirement applies equally to grand and modest purposes alike. Importantly, certainty of purpose is analytically distinct from the beneficiary principle: the latter concerns who may hold the trustee to account, while the former concerns what the trustee is required to do.
—
[1] Tillsonburg Scout Association v. Scouts Canada, 2020 ONSC 747, at para 33; Rubner v. Bistricer, 2019 ONCA 733, at para 59.
[2] Wai-Keung Kwan v Kalsang, 2025 ONSC 124, at para 113–114.
[3] Re Denley’s Trust Deed, [1969] 1 Ch 373 (Ch D), at 382–383.
[4] Re Astor’s Settlement Trusts, [1952] Ch 534.
[5] Ibid., at 549.
[6] Re Endacott, [1960] Ch 232 (CA).
[7] Ibid., at 246.
[8] On this view, “anomalous exceptions” survive not because they are exempt from the beneficiary principle, but because their narrow specificity happens to make them workable.
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