POWERS - RIGHTS OF DONEES' CREDITORS AGAINST PROPERTY SUBJECT THERETO WHEN THE POWER IS GENERAL AND IS EXERCISED BY WILL

Authors

Charles Wright, Ill, member of the Michigan bar

Abstract

In general it is said that the majority of jurisdictions in the United States allow creditors of the donee of a general power of appointment, exercisable by deed or will, or by will only, to reach the appointive property when the power is exercised by will, if the donee's personal estate is insolvent and if the appointment is to a volunteer. It would appear from a survey of the authorities dealing with the question that only twenty states have spoken on the subject at all. Of that number only sixteen have decisions which can, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered in point. Ten states of the sixteen have allowed creditors to satisfy their claims from such property without adding any further requirements. Two more have conceded that an appointment might affirmatively be made for creditors. And one of these has held it is enough, even, if the donee sufficiently treats the appointive property as his own. But then, once the fundamental concept of a general power is adopted, there is certainly no logical reason why appointments in fact for creditors or subject to the donee's debts should not be allowed, nor why an appointment to his own estate should not be inferred from his sufficiently treating the property as a part thereof. Only six states may conceivably be considered to have held that insolvency plus a testamentary appointment to volunteers are not enough.

Recommended Citation

Charles Wright, Ill, POWERS - RIGHTS OF DONEES' CREDITORS AGAINST PROPERTY SUBJECT THERETO WHEN THE POWER IS GENERAL AND IS EXERCISED BY WILL, 41 Mich. L. Rev. 289 (1942).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol41/iss2/8