A trust is not a trust if the “trustee” alone holds legal title to the subject property and alone possesses the entire beneficial/equitable interest. Instead, he owns the subject property outright and free of trust, all interests, both legal and equitable, being merged in him. An inadvertent merger can have adverse consequences; this has been true since time immemorial. In the case of the ancient use, the precursor to the modern trust, a merger of the legal and equitable interests in the subject property in a single person would enable the lord to effectively claim relevium, custodia haeredis, maritagium haeredis, and escaeta upon that person’s death. Today, the trustee of a “gun trust” seeks to avoid merger so as not to run afoul of Federal (U.S.) firearms regulations. Also since time immemorial, maintaining a multiplicity of trustees has been the tried and true method of insuring that a trust is not terminated by merger. Charles E. Rounds, Jr. and Charles E. Rounds, III explain in §8.15.1 of Loring and Rounds: A Trustee’s Handbook (the use) and in §8.7 of the Handbook (the trust). Each section is reproduced in its entirety below.