(b) That's wrong. There is nothing to stop the trustee from also being named as a beneficiary of the trust. In such cases, the trustee can be thought of as having two identities with different legal rights and duties, firstly, as trustee, and separately, as a beneficiary.

Because the whole idea of a trust is based on giving the legal and beneficial ownership of the trust assets to different persons, a trustee (the legal owner) cannot be the only beneficiary, because then the legal and beneficial rights of ownership would no longer belong to different people. However, as long as there is one or more additional beneficiaries, then there is no difficulty.

In the circumstances of the case-study, Edward can be a beneficiary as well as the trustee.