Grantor or Trustor

• A grantor is an individual, company or legal entity that initiates the formation of the trust. The grantor possesses ownership rights of the asset or business and wishes to transfer it to another person to keep in trust. A grantor can also be someone appointed to act on behalf of the owner of the assets in formulation of the contract. He has the legal right to appoint all the relevant parties to the trust and provide the details of the trust.
  
  

Grantee or Trustee

• The trustee refers to the individual corporation or other legal entity that is given the mandate to manage the property by the trustor. This particular party is under an agreement to administer the property as per the provisions provided by the grantor. Failure to live up to the terms of agreement -- for example, misuse of the property -- may lead to legal ramifications under the law of equity.
  
  

Beneficiary

• A trust must provide a beneficiary or beneficiaries who will benefit from the trust once its time period expires. This individual or group will have ownership of the property or business. The law does not require the beneficiary to have notification of the trust for it to be valid. A grantor may also provide that the beneficiary of the trust is a certain charity organization. The state's attorney general has the mandate to enforce this trust.
  
  

Intent from Grantor

• For a trust to be valid there must be a specified intention from the part of the grantor to form a trust and be bound to it. The grantor is to present this intent on a document known as a trust that provides the identification of all affected parties and their responsibilities. However, the trust is invalid if the grantor instills a provision for the trustee to fulfill that is against public policy -- the commission of a crime, for example
  
  

The Property

• The trust document should specify the property that the trustor bestows to the trustee to manage for the beneficiary. This may be in the form of an estate, cash, a business, a vehicle or a boat. This is known as the trust property.