Estates & future interests

Texas Supreme Court interprets life estate as a fee simple because the remainders were subject to divestment

In Jordan v. Parker, 2022 WL 17998227 (Tex. Dec. 30, 2022), the Texas Supreme Court held that a conveyance of a life estate actually conveyed a fee simple since the remainders were subject to alteration or even complete divestment by the life estate owner. In this case, a man devised his entire estate to his widow for life with remainders in their children, but the devise...

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Commercial rent acceleration clause invalid if it is a "penalty"

The Massachusetts courts say that there is no duty to mitigate damages in commercial leases but they sure look like they recognize such a duty when a lease has an acceleration clause (requiring the full remaining rent for the rest of the lease to be paid if rent payments are missed). In the case of Cummings Props., LLC v. Hines, 2022 WL 17409280 (Mass. App. Ct. 2022), a commercial tenant...

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Parcel is landlocked after 90 year easement ends

Most courts granted an easement by necessity when an owner severs its land and leaves a parcel without access to a public road. The easement allows passage over land that had been connected to the landlocked parcel before it became landlocked. The courts differ on whether this is a mandatory rule of law (owners are not allowed to create land to which there is no access) or a default rule based on the implied intent of the parties, in which case the...

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Rights of first refusal do not violate the rule against perpetuities if they must be exercised during the holder's lifetime

New York retains a version of the traditional rule against perpetuities. Like most states, it has classified options to purchase and rights of first refusal as "executory interests" subject to the rule against perpetuities. They therefore must vest (if at all) within 21 years of their creation, or within 21 years of the death of a named person in the conveyance or during the lifetime of a named person. The latter was the case in...

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Proceeds of partition by sale divided according to ownership interests without any credit given to co-owner whose funds were used to buy the property

Because the Texas partition statute requires the proceeds of a partition sale to be divided "according to [the owners'] just rights therein," joint tenants were entitled to 50% of the sale proceeds even though one of the co-owners had used his own funds to purchase the property. ...

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"Condition" language creates executory interest, but new executory interests banned unless held by public or charitable entities

In White v. Auger,2019 N.H. LEXIS 4 (N.H. 2019), the grantor conveyed property to a grantee "on condition that" the grantee build on it (or on adjacent land) and live there (within 10 years) created a fee simple subject to executory limitation. State statutes abolished possibilities of reverter, rights of entry, and...

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