Lilley's Estate

Citations

• 272 Pa. 143
• 116 A. 392
• 28 A.L.R. 366
• 1922 Pa. LEXIS 791

Syllabus

<p>Wills — Perpetuity—Illegal devise — Intention—Trusts cmd trustees.</p> <p>1. A perpetuity is any limitation or condition which may take away or suspend the absolute power of alienation for a period beyond life or lives in being and twenty-one years thereafter. If there is any possibility that a violation of this rule may happen, the devise is void.</p> <p>2. The rule is to be applied after testator’s intentions are discovered ; its object is to defeat a manifest intention which is contrary to a well recognized policy of the law.</p> <p>3. The rule has to do with future estates, which, by possibility, may not become vested within the time prescribed by law; it applies only to future estates which are contingent, and has no application to vested estates.</p> <p>4. If an absolute term of years is specified by the testator, and no anterior term for a life in being is referred to, such absolute term cannot be longer than twenty-one years from testator’s death. The rule applies to both equitable and legal estates.</p> <p>5. Where a testator creates an active trust in two nephews, named as executors, and their successors, to collect, invest, accumulate, conserve and divide the property at the end of ninety-nine years, and provides that no portion of the estate, either principal or income, shall be parted with during that period, and that final distribution shall be made to the heirs of the two nephews living at that time, the gift is contingent, as there can be no vesting until the identity of the persons to take is determined, and the devise violates the rule against perpetuities.</p> <p>6. The prior estate held by the executors falls with the gift, and a resulting trust arises in the heirs at law and next of kin of the testator.</p> <p>7. Where the provisions creating the particular estate in trust are inseparable and dependent parts of the testator’s main scheme to tie up his residuary estate in the ultimate gift, and thereby prevent the vesting until a date too remo