This article considers the nature and future of resulting trusts, and offers a critique of the Birks/Chambers theory of resulting trusts. It argues that the current law cannot be explained, as the Birks/Chambers theory suggests, on the basis of the reversal of unjust enrichment. Instead, the law of resulting trusts is based on an old fiction whereby the owner of property is regarded as holding a beneficial interest which may be retained when the legal ownership has been transferred to another person. Unfortunately, this ‘retention’ idea does not provide a doctrinally satisfying justification for the current law. A logical response would be to discard those aspects of the law of resulting trusts that depend on the retention idea and, therefore, to dispense with presumed resulting trusts. The article argues that, in fact, in English law the purchase-money resulting trust has already been made irrelevant by the common intention constructive trust. However, the article argues for the continued recognition of gap-filling (i.e. ‘automatic’) resulting trusts on the basis that an alternative justification can be identified for such trusts.

中文翻译：

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所得信托的过去、现在和未来

本文考虑了结果信托的性质和未来，并对 Birks/Chambers 的结果信托理论提出了批评。它认为，不能像伯克斯/钱伯斯理论所暗示的那样，基于逆转不当得利来解释现行法律。取而代之的是，由此产生的信托法基于一种古老的拟制，即财产所有人被视为持有受益权益，当法定所有权转移给另一个人时，该权益可能会保留。不幸的是，这种“保留”的想法并没有为现行法律提供一个理论上令人满意的理由。一个合乎逻辑的反应是放弃依赖于保留理念的结果信托法的那些方面，因此，免除推定的结果信托。文章认为，事实上，在英国法中，共同意图推定信托已经使购买资金产生的信托变得无关紧要。然而，该文章主张继续承认填补空白（即“自动”）产生的信托，其基础是可以为此类信托确定替代理由。