A resulting trust arises where although legal title is vested in a trustee, equitable title becomes vested in the settlor. It is a legal fiction designed to prevent unjust enrichment. Resulting trusts are trusts implied by law (as determined by a court) that a person who holds title or possession was intended under the circumstances of the agreement with the intended owner to hold the property for the intended owner.

A resulting trust may be found when a person is ordered to enforce an intent (often judicially inferred) on the part of the person exercising control over another’s property to do so for the benefit of (in trust for) the other party. Resulting trusts are imposed in equity to enforce what has been found to be prior, but actual, intent.