It is extremely flexible and can provide for almost any eventuality. There are few restrictions and therefore most trust agreements are customized to accommodate the personal wishes of the settlor. A trust establishes a fiduciary relationship with respect to property, subjecting the trustee who holds title to the property to equitable duties to hold and administer the property for the benefit of beneficiaries. Thus, the trustee must have fiduciary duties to perform and the beneficiaries must be named or ascertainable. Additionally, the beneficiaries are the only persons with the right to enforce the trust agreement.
Trust agreements fall into two general classifications, fixed or discretionary.
Fixed trust agreements set out precisely who will benefit and when under the trust arrangement, whereas discretionary-type trust arrangements grant wide discretionary powers to the trustees. Most trusts established in Belize are of the discretionary type and in such cases the beneficiaries are normally defined by reference to a wide class of persons born within the perpetuity period and the class of beneficiaries may include corporations, trustees of other settlements and charitable organizations. A Belize Trust has a life of 120 years and cannot be varied or set aside by any court. It is also normal under these types of arrangements for the trust agreement to enable the trustees to add further beneficiaries at a later date and to remove persons from the existing class of beneficiaries. Trusts may be either irrevocable or revocable.