Trustee

The representative of the bankruptcy estate who exercises statutory powers, principally for the benefit of the unsecured creditors, under the general supervision of the court and the direct supervision of the U.S. trustee or bankruptcy administrator. The trustee is a private individual or corporation appointed in all chapter 7, chapter 12, and chapter 13 cases and some chapter 11 cases. The trustee's responsibilities include reviewing the debtor's petition and schedules and bringing actions against creditors or the debtor to recover property of the bankruptcy estate. In chapter 7, the trustee liquidates property of the estate, and makes distributions to creditors. Trustees in chapter 12 and 13 have similar duties to a chapter 7 trustee and the additional responsibilities of overseeing the debtor's plan, receiving payments from debtors, and disbursing plan payments to creditors.

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Additional Sources

Duhaime Legal Dictionary

A person who holds property rights for the benefit of another.

Law.com Dictionary

n. a person or entity who holds the assets (corpus) of a trustee for the benefit of the beneficiaries and manages the trust and its assets under the terms of the trust stated in the declaration of trust which created it. In many "living trusts" the creator of the trust (trustor, settlor) names himself/herself (or themselves) as the original trustee who will manage the trust until his/her death when it is taken over by a successor trustee. In some trusts, such as a "charitable remainder unitrust," the trustee must be independent and therefore cannot be the creator of the trust. If a trustee has title to property, he/she/it holds title only for the benefit of the trust and its beneficiaries.

Legal-Dictionary.org

A person or corporation who holds legal title to property in a trust for the benefit of a third party beneficiary and a fiduciary duty to that beneficiary.

The Free (Legal) Dictionary

An individual or corporation named by an individual, who sets aside property to be used for the benefit of another person, to manage the property as provided by the terms of the document that created the arrangement.

A trustee manages property that is held in trust. A trust is an arrangement in which one person holds the property of another for the benefit of a third party, called the beneficiary. The beneficiary is usually the owner of the property or a person designated as the beneficiary by the owner of the property. A trustee may be either an individual or a corporation.

Trusts are useful for investment purposes, and they offer various tax advantages. Another purpose of trusts is to keep the trust property, usually money, out of the hands of the owner. This may be desirable if the beneficiary of the trust is incompetent, immature, or a spendthrift.

Trustees have certain obligations to the beneficiary of the trust. State statutes may address the duties of a trustee, but much of the law covering such obligations is often found in a state's case law, or court opinions.

A trustee is a fiduciary of the trust beneficiary. A fiduciary is legally bound to act, within the confines of the law, in the best interests of the beneficiary. A trustee is in a special position of confidence in relation to the beneficiary because the trustee has control of property that is essentially owned by the beneficiary.

Wikipedia

Trustee is a legal term for a holder of property on behalf of a beneficiary. A trust can be set up either to benefit particular persons, or for any charitable purposes (but not generally for non-charitable purposes): typical examples are a will trust for the testator's children and family, a pension trust (to confer benefits on employees and their families), and a charitable trust. In all cases, the trustee may be a person or company, whether or not they are a prospective beneficiary.