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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Rise Of The Perpetual Trust, Jesse Dukeminier, James E. Krier
The Rise Of The Perpetual Trust, Jesse Dukeminier, James E. Krier
Articles
For more than two centuries, the Rule against Perpetuities has served as the chief means of limiting a transferor's power to tie up property by way of successive contingent interests. But recently, at least seventeen jurisdictions in the United States have enacted statutes abolishing the Rule in the case of perpetual (or near-perpetual) trusts. The prime mover behind this important development has been the federal Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax. This Article traces the gradual decline of the common law Rule against Perpetuities, considers the dynamics behind the recent wave of state legislation, examines the problems that might result from the rise …
The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller
The Boundaries Of Private Property, Michael A. Heller
Articles
If your house and fields are worth more separately, divide them; if you want to leave a ring to your child now and grandchild later, split the ownership in a trust. The American law of property encourages owners to subdivide resources freely. Hidden within the law, however, is a boundary principle that limits the right to subdivide private property into wasteful fragments. While people often create wealth when they break up and recombine property in novel ways, owners may make mistakes, or their self-interest may clash with social welfare. Property law responds with diverse doctrines that prevent and abolish excessive …
Perpetuity Statutes, Edwin C. Goddard
Perpetuity Statutes, Edwin C. Goddard
Articles
THE common law of perpetuities is one of the most interesting examples of almost pure judicial legislation. De Donis, The Statutes of Uses and of Wills, but gave wider scope to the development by the courts of rules of law to thwart the attempt of the great landowners to tie up their landed estates in their families in perpetuity. One body of rules to this end limited restraints upon alienation, another the creation of future interests vesting at too remote a period. Restriction of restraints upon alienation, and the rule against perpetuities, these two were developed for the same end, …
Rule Against Perpetuities As Applied To Options, John R. Rood
Rule Against Perpetuities As Applied To Options, John R. Rood
Articles
Does the rule against perpetuities render unlimited options void? This is a question which the English courts answered affirmatively some thirty-five years ago; new aspects of the question have been frequently presented to those courts since that time, and conclusions not easy to reconcile have been reached. It is believed that the present status of the law in England is that an option is like any other interest in land, void if it may arise at too remote a time, otherwise not. This conclusion is based on the decision in Borland's Trustees v. Steel Bros. & Co. [1901] 1 Ch. …