FUTURE INTERESTS-ACCELERATION OF VESTED REMAINDERS SUBJECT TO COMPLETE DEFEASANCE

Authors

Allen C. Holmes, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

In 1938 the defendant, grantor, executed a deed by which she purported to vest a remainder in her son, the plaintiff herein, subject to a life estate in herself and. in her husband should he survive her. The deed further provided that should her son die before the survivor of her husband and herself, then the property was to pass share and share alike to the son's then living heirs. The grantor survived her husband. Shortly after his death she conveyed her life estate to her son for the express purpose of destroying it through merger with the remainder vested in her son. Subject to the execution of this second deed the plaintiff entered into a contract with the defendant, May M. Maxwell, for the sale of tile property. Upon examination of the title the defendant purchaser refused to consumate the transaction without first obtaining judicial determination and declaration that the seller had a good and lawful right to convey the property in fee. The plaintiff then brought this action for declaratory judgment as to the construction of the above described deeds. Held, though the deed to the plantiff conveyed only a vested remainder subject to complete defeasance, the remainder was accelerated by the premature determination of the preceding estate through merger; and the contingent remainder in the son's then living heirs was destroyed thus vesting in the son a present fee simple absolute. Singleton v. Gordon, (Wyo. 1943) 144 P. (2d) 138.

Recommended Citation

Allen C. Holmes, FUTURE INTERESTS-ACCELERATION OF VESTED REMAINDERS SUBJECT TO COMPLETE DEFEASANCE, 42 Mich. L. Rev. 930 (1944).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol42/iss5/12