Barton v. Thaw

Citations

• 246 Pa. 348
• 92 A. 312
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 519

Syllabus

<p>Real property — Rule against perpetuities — Options—Construction — Intention—Void option — Cloud on title — Equity.</p> <p>1. The rule against perpetuities is aimed at the suspension of alienation by compelling such a limitation of future interests as will require them to vest, if at all, within a certain time. The rule promotes alienability by destroying future interests and is the most important restraint which the law places upon the right to create future interests.</p> <p>2. Tbe rule against perpetuities is not a rule of construction but a peremptory command of law. Its object is to defeat intention,, and a contract providing for the creation of a future interest in property is first to be construed as if the rule did not exist and then to the provision so construed, the rule applies.</p> <p>3. An option is a unilateral agreement binding upon the optionor from the date of its execution, but it does not become a contract inter partes in the sense of an absolute contract to convey on the one side and to purchase on the other until exercised by the optionee ; it is not a sale but a right of election in the party taking the option to exercise the privilege of purchase and only when that privilege has been exercised by acceptance in the manner specified in the instrument creating the option does it become an absolute contract binding upon both parties.</p> <p>4. Where the event upon which an estate is to arise, such as the acceptance of an option to purchase, is so uncertain that it may transpire at some indefinite time in the future, or may never transpire at all, the interest created by the option is not vested but contingent and within the rule against perpetuities.</p> <p>5. A bill in equity to remove a cloud upon title alleged that plaintiffs were the owners of certain land; that their predecessors in title had granted the coal underlying such land, by a deed containing a covenant that in case the grantee, his heirs or assigns “should at any future time what