In re Estate of Walkerly

Citations

• 108 Cal. 627
• 41 P. 772
• 1895 Cal. LEXIS 898

Syllabus

<p>Wills—Trusts — Suspension op Power op Alienation.—A devise of real estate to trustees upon trusts to manage the property and apply the proceeds for the use of persons designated, and at the expiration of twenty-five years, or, if the widow should at that time be alive, then upon her death, to sell the property and distribute the proceeds among the then living nephews and nieces and the descendants and heirs of those who might be dead, is fatally defective in that it provides for an absolute period of years for the determination of the trust, during which period the power of alienation is suspended.</p> <p>Id.—Estate op Trustees—Inalienability during Period op Trust.— Every express trust, valid in its creation, vests the whole estate in the trustees, and where it provides for applying the income for twenty-five years, and for a sale of the property and disposition of the proceeds, it vests the whole legal and equitable estate which the testator enjoyed, and the beneficiaries take no estate as such, their interest being merely the right to the enforcement of the trust; and during the period limited for the trust any attempt by the trustees to convey would contravene the trust and be a void act, nor can the trust be terminated or destroyed during the period fixed for its existence even by the consent and joint acts of all the trustees and beneficiaries; and such trust would, if enforced, necessarily make the absolute fee inalienable during the period of the trust.</p> <p>Id.—Whole Estate Depined.—The whole estate which, under section 863 of the Civil Code, is vested in the trustees, is the whole of such an estate as is necessary to carry out the purposes of the trust.</p> <p>Id.—Nature op Perpetuity—Possible Suspension beyond Lives in Being.—A perpetuity is any limitation or condition which may take away or suspend the absolute power of alienation for a period beyond the continuance of lives in being, and it is not necessary that it will, or must, suspend alienation