D.C. Code § 42-1501: Legal estate in cestui que use; exception.

Where lands, tenements, or hereditaments are conveyed or devised to one person, whether for years or for a freehold estate, to the use of or in trust for another, no estate or interest, legal or equitable, shall vest in the trustee, but the person entitled, according to the true intent and meaning of such instrument, to the actual possession of the property and the receipt of the rents and profits thereof, in law or in equity, shall be deemed to have a legal estate therein of the same quality and duration and subject to the same conditions as his beneficial interest, except where the title of such trustee is not merely nominal but is connected with some power of actual disposition or management of the property conveyed.