ABSTRACT
The self-dealing principle restricts the ability of a trustee to deal with trust property in a personal capacity. So strict is the restriction on trustees benefiting, or even appearing to benefit, from trust property that the trustee is restricted from dealing with trust property even on a commercial, arm’s length basis. For example, if land were held on trust and the trustee sought to buy that property from the trust, the trustee would be acting on behalf of the trust as well as acting on her own behalf in the sale. Such a transaction would bear the risk that the trustee would acquire the property from the trust at an artificially low price and thus exploit the beneficiaries. By the same token it might be that the price which the trustee obtains would have been the same price which the beneficiaries would have obtained on the open market.
