Brown v. Ford

Citations

• 120 Va. 233
• 91 S.E. 145
• 1917 Va. LEXIS 102

Syllabus

<p>1. Trusts. — Jurisdiction—Liens.—Where a court of equity in three chancery causes has taken the management and control of the whole corpus of a trust estate and in a fourth cause has taken jurisdiction to partition and distribute the realty and personalty of the estate, the court has unquestionable primary jurisdiction as a court of equity of a claim against one of the beneficiaries to the extent that such claim is an equitable lien on his interest in the estate under the control of the court.</p> <p>2. Trusts. — Creation of Equitable Lien. — An executory agreement on the part of a beneficiary to make the whole corpus of a trust estate a security for a debt, operates to create an equitable lien on the beneficiary’s interest in such estate. That the interest of the beneficiary is not vested but contingent is immaterial; when the contingent interest becomes vested the equitable lien attaches.</p> <p>3. Equitable Liens. — Creation.—Every express executory agreement in writing, whereby the contracting party sufficiently indicates an intention to make some particular property, real or personal, or fund, therein described and identified, a security for a debt or other obligation, creates an equitable lien upon the property so indicated, which is enforceable against the property. Under like circumstances a mere verbal agreement may create a similar lien upon personal property. Whatever the form of the contract may be, if it is intended thereby to create a security, it is an equitable mortgage, enforced upon the principle that equity will treat that as done which, by agreement, is to be done.</p> <p>4. Equitable Liens. — After-Acquired Property. — An equitable lien upon property, to be acquired in the future, is valid and enforceable.</p> <p>5. Trusts. — Jurisdiction.—A portion of a contingent interest of a beneficiary of a trust estate, upon his death before the death of the life tenant was by a compromise agreement vested in a claimant, charged by the agreement with th