Ackerman v. Ackerman

Citations

• 34 Pa. Super. 162
• 1907 Pa. Super. LEXIS 98

Syllabus

<p>Will — Construction—Remainder-man—Life estate — “Her and my heirs ” — Husband and wife — Estate tail.</p> <p>Where a husband executes a deed for a nominal consideration of all his estate, real, personal and mixed, to his wife, naming her, “her and my heirs,and assigns,” and it appears that at the date of the deed he had living one child by his first wife and two by the wife named in the deed, the wife takes an estate for life, and upon his death an interest in remainder vests in the child of the first wife, and upon the death of the life tenant the children of such child, he having died intestate in the meantime, are entitled to a share in possession in the real estate covered by the deed.</p> <p>Whilst the precise words, “heirs of the body,” are not necessary to the creation of an estate tail, it is requisite that the heirs shall be limited to be procreated by, or begotten on, some body certain, either by express words or by words amounting to so much. It results that a conveyance to A, and the heirs of the grantor and the heirs of the grantee, even though the grantor and the grantee are husband and wife, neither by express words nor by express implication creates an estate tail, which by virtue of the act of 1855 becomes an estate in fee simple. And it is very clear that a granting clause in that form does not, ex vi termini, vest a fee simple in severalty in A. Further, applying the rule nemo est haeres viventis, it is beyond controversy that such a grant would not, eo instanti, vest an estate in fee simple in A and the living children of the grantor and of the grantee as tenants in common.</p> <p>In this state, when the word “heirs” is used as a word of purchase, it,means “statutory heirs” — those persons designated by the intestate act to take the estate not disposed of by last will and testament.</p>