Law Commons^™

The Essential Structure Of Property Law, James Y. Stern

Michigan Law Review

This Article examines a characteristic of property entitlements fundamental to the structure of property systems that has received scant academic attention, a characteristic referred to as the mutual exclusivity principle. According to this principle, a property system does not allow for the existence of incompatible rights. Two people cannot separately be the owners of the same resource, for instance. By contrast, two people can each hold valid but contradictory contract rights to the resource. Although the existing property literature has stressed the “exclusive” nature of property, the various ways in which property is imagined to be exclusive, such as by …

Top Leases And The Rule Against Perpetuities, J. Suzanne Hill

Pepperdine Law Review

The competition for oil and gas leases has resulted in an increase in the use of top leases to secure oil and gas leasehold estates. Top leases which are found to violate the Rule against Perpetuities could result in the loss of millions of dollars to the lessee. The author examines top leasing in light of the Rule against Perpetuities and concludes that absent a savings clause, such leases violate the Rule. A savings clause is proposed which would save an otherwise invalid lease thereby circumventing the harsh application of the Rule.

Toward A Model Law Of Estates And Future Interests, Benjamin Barros

Benjamin Barros

The American law of estates and future interests is tremendously complex. This complexity is unjustifiable because it serves no modern purpose. Many of the distinctions between types of interests in the current system of ownership are vestiges of ancient English feudal concepts and owe their place in the law solely to historical accident. This article develops a proposed model law designed to simplify and modernize the basic property ownership system. The proposals made here differ substantially from prior suggestions for legislative reform, and reflect issues of enactability and retroactivity that previously have been neglected in the literature. The article both …

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 …

Present And Future Interests: A Graphic Explanation, Roger W. Andersen

Seattle University Law Review

Few topics bedevil more law students than the law of present and future interests. With the goal of eliminating some of the confusion, this Article highlights the basic doctrine with a new set of diagrams to represent graphically how various interests behave. This Article opens with a question many students ask and then proceeds to the core concepts in the law of present and future interests.

Loosening The Grip Of The Dead Hand: Shall We Abolish Legal Future Interests In Land?, C. Dent Bostick

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article is concerned with a dilemma in the law of Future Interests. The dilemma stems from the needs and demands of a modern society to convey land cleanly and quickly and from the desire of property owners, especially landowners, to direct from the grave the on-going disposition of their property. This desire of landowners has always played a role in English and American property law. Much of the energy of the early judiciary was devoted to counter balancing the numerous ingenious arrangements devised by persons to effectuate continual control of their property.

Property--Right Of Re-Entry--Descent And Alienability, John R. Frazier

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Property--Fee Simple Determinables--Distinguishing Characteristics, James Alan Harris

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introductory Essay On The Literature Of Future Interests, Roy M. Mersky

Vanderbilt Law Review

The general practice of law involves, among other things, the drafting of wills and trust agreements and the litigation of cases arising out of such instruments as drawn by other lawyers. Successful practice in this field is predicated upon adequate training in the law of future interests. This difficult and technical branch of law contains rules and procedures which are understandable only in the light of their historical background

Real Property--1959 Tennessee Survey, Thomas G. Roady, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Future Interests.-The creation of divided interests in real property always carries with it problems in controlling the use and man- agement by the owner of the possessory interest. One of the most difficult problems in future interests is how to adjust the relation between the holder of a present possessory interest and the holder of a future interest in the same parcel of land. In resolving such problems many courts are influenced primarily by the nature (classification) of the future interest involved and have worked out with some degree of certainty the distribution of benefits and burdens in the simple …

Real Property--Rights Of The Remainderman After Sale For Nonpayment Of Life Tenant's Taxes, J. F. W. Jr.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Decedents' Estates, Trusts And Future Interests -- 1958 Tennessee Survey, Herman L. Trautman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The subject matter of this article will be presented in three parts entitled Decedents' Estates, Trusts, and Future Interests. The developments of the year' consist of judicial decisions of the appellate courts in Tennessee, and the work of the Section on Real Property,Probate and Trust Law of the Tennessee Bar Association on a new statute concerning intestate succession for the state. Since the General Assembly was not in session, there were no legislative developments. The part entitled Decendents' Estates will include a discussion of intestate succession, wills, and the problems of fiduciary administration in decendents' estates. The problems of fiduciary …

Future Interests--Fee Simple Absolute Or Fee Simple Subject To A Condition Subsequent Or Fee Simple Determinable, R. M.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law--Gift Of Land "For Use By White Race Only" Creates Possibility Of Reverter For Violation, C. M. C.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Wills, Trusts And Estates (Herein Of Future Interests) -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, W. J. Bowe

Vanderbilt Law Review

Execution of Wills:

Under the Tennessee Code a will valid at the place of execution is valid under the laws of Tennessee. A testator domiciled in Tennessee executed a will in Mississippi in the presence of two witnesses, but thinking that the will should be acknowledged by a notary public rather than subscribed by the witnesses, he had the acknowledgment taken by a Mississippi notary public. As the Mississippi statute is peculiar in that it merely requires "that the Will shall be attested by two or more credible witnesses" rather than the usual "shall be both attested and subscribed" the …

Further Developments As To The Alienability And Transmissibility Of Future Interests In Maryland, Russell R. Reno

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Future Interests And Estates -- 1954 Tennessee Survey, Herman L. Trautman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Worthier Title--A Rule of Property: In Cochran v. Frierson' the Supreme Court affirmed the rule of Robinson v. Blankenship that the doctrine of worthier title is still a rule of absolute property law in Tennessee, and not a rule of construction. The Blankenship case is nationally recognized as representative of the early English doctrine which was abolished by statute in England in 1833. The doctrine has been modified by the majority of American courts which hold that it is a rule of construction.

Real Property, Herman L. Trautman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Tennessee cases in the fields of Real Property and Future Interests have been quite abundant during the period' covered by this Survey. Because of the number of cases and the very interesting and novel problems presented in some of them, and because the scope of the law of Future Interests includes cases which involve Wills and Personal Property as well as Real Property, it is believed that the reader will find it more feasible to consider the Future Interest cases in a separate article appearing in this Survey. Therefore, notwithstanding some overlapping, the emphasis of this article will be …

Future Interests, Herman L. Trautman

Vanderbilt Law Review

There were five cases in the field of Future Interests during the period' covered by this Survey. They were all decided by the Supreme Court of Tennessee. From the standpoint of doctrinal development, Mountain City Missionary Baptist Church v. Wagner, involving the relation of the possibility of reverter to the Rule against Perpetuities, was probably the most significant, although the point determined had perhaps been assumed previously in Tennessee. Pope v. Alexander drew a neat distinction between a trust for a "public" cemetery and a trust for a "private" cemetery with respect to the Rule against Perpetuities. A plausible suggestion …

Retroactive Legislation Affecting Interests In Land, John Scurlock

Michigan Legal Studies Series

Professor Scurlock's monograph covers an area of the law which is commonly by-passed in treatises and in classroom instruction. If we could merely tear Maitland's "seamless web" of the law and retain all the shreds, no part of the legal system would escape us. What we actually do, however, is to set up, in a more or less arbitrary fashion, numerous centers of legal classification, such as contracts, torts, property and constitutional law, to which closely related legal materials are attracted as to a magnet. But those legal materials which stand midway between two centers of attraction are likely to …

Kentucky Decisions On Future Interests (1938-1953), W. Lewis Roberts

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Robert J. Lynn (Reviewer), William J. Bowe (Reviewer), Samuel J. Foosaner (Reviewer), Stanley D. Ross (Reviewer)

Vanderbilt Law Review

Handbook on the Law of Future Interests

By Lewis M. Simes

St.Paul, West Publishing Co., 1951. Pp. xv, 495. $8.00

reviewer: Robert J. Lynn

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Tax Savings in Real Estate Transactions

Prepared by Bureau of Analysis, Davenport, Iowa. Chicago: Published under auspices of National Institute of Real Estate Brokers of the National Association of Real Estate Boards, 1951. Pp. 98. $5.00

reviewer: William J. Bowe

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Income Tax Treatment of Life Insurance proceeds and other Tax Articles

By William J. Bowe

Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press,1951. Pp. 90. $2.10

reviewer: Samuel J. Foosaner

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Justice According to Law

By Roscoe Pound …

Terminating Conditions Unlimited In Time

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Alienability Of Future Interests In Tennessee, Ernest C. Matthews, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the most technical problems in the field of property law is the manner in which future interests in realty and personalty may be alienated. The term, future interest, is used here to mean a presently existing interest which is deprived of possession but which looks forward to possession in the future. The term is a misnomer. Such an interest is "future" only in the sense that it looks toward becoming possessory in the future. Just as future interests is a law of words, so the alienability of future interests is, in the absence of statute, a law of …

Streamlining Conveyancing Procedure, Paul E. Basye

Michigan Law Review

Statutes of limitations have long occupied an essential and important place in every system of jurisprudence. They express a policy that is essential to social progress in a great variety of ways. Their effect is particularly noteworthy in the field of property law where they promote repose and give security to human affairs. "They stimulate to activity and punish negligence. While time is constantly destroying the evidence of rights, they supply its place by a presumption which renders proof unnecessary."

Virtual Representation Of Holders Of Future Interests In Actions Involving Titles In Kentucky, Bertel M. Sparks

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Future Interests--Separation Of Valid Interests From Interests Which Are Void Because Of The Rule Against Perpetuities, Elmer Durward Weldon

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Decisions On Future Interests, 1933-1937, W. Lewis Roberts

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Alienability And Transmissibility Of Future Interests In Maryland, Russell R. Reno

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

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, …