Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Lurking Rule Against Accumulations Of Income, Robert H. Sitkoff

Law and Economics Papers

The Rule Against Perpetuities is dying an ignoble death. To attract trust business and the lawyers' fees and trustees' commissions that come with it, twenty states have abolished the Rule as applied to interests in trust. But the Rule Against Perpetuities is not the only rule of property law that bears on trust duration. Another is the rule against accumulations of income, which limits the timeframe during which a settlor may direct the trustee to accumulate and retain income in trust. For 200 years, the rule against accumulations of income has lurked in the shadow of its older and more …