The actual assets in a trust

• A. Corpus
• B. Principal
• C. Estate
• D. Funds

Answer: (B)

The assets placed into a trust are described as the principal. This is the base property that the trustee holds for the beneficiaries, including cash, securities, real estate, or other assets poured into the trust. The principal remains the trust’s underlying assets, even though the trust may generate income over time. The term captures the formal concept of what funds the trust is built from.

Comparatively, the estate refers to property a person owns at death that goes through probate, not the property held in a trust. Funds is too generic and doesn’t denote the specific legal concept of the trust’s underlying assets. Corpus is essentially synonymous with principal, but the standard label used in many exam contexts for the trust’s actual assets is principal.