The Rule Against Perpetuities ("RAP") Flashcards
What is the rule for the RAP?
Certain kinds of future interests are void if there is any possibility, however remote, that the given interest may vest more than 21 years after the death of a measuring life.
What is the four step technique to assessing potential RAP problems?
- Determine which future interests have been created by the conveyance.
- Identify the conditions precedent to the vesting of the suspect future interest;
- Find all possible measuring lifes. Look for people alive at the date of the conveyance whose lives and/or deaths are relevant to the condition’s occurrence.
- Ask: will we know for sure within 21 years of the death of any one of the relevant measuring lives if the future interest holder(s) can take? If so, the conveyance is good. If we won’t know for sure whether the future interest will vest within 21 years of the death of any measuring life, the interest is void.
What type of conveyances does and does not the RAP apply to?
Applies to: contingent remainders, executory interests, and certain vested remainders subject to open.
Does not apply to: any future interest in O, the grantor; indevisably divested remainders; vested remainders subject to complete divestment.
Does the following hypo violate the RAP?
“To A for life, then to the first of her children to reach the age of 30.” A is 70, her only child, B, is 29 years old.
Step 1. Classify the future interest - Contingent remainder.
Step 2. Conditions precedent to the vesting of the future interest - A dies; Child reaches 30.
Step 3. Relevant measuring life - A because both life and death relevant.
Step 4. Will we know with certainty, within 21 years of the death of the measuring life, A, if the future interest holder can take? This violates the RAP because if A were to die tomorrow, B would not reach it. Likewise, if B were to die tomorrow, B would not reach 30. We cannot know for sure.
Therefore, A has a life estate, A’s children have nothing, and O has a reversion.
