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The rule against perpetuities serves a number of purposes. First, English courts have long recognized that allowing owners to attach long-lasting contingencies to their property harms the ability of future generations to freely buy and sell the property, since few people would be willing to buy property that had unresolved issues regarding its ownership hanging over it.
The clause became part of contractual drafting in response to common law rule developed by the courts known as the rule against perpetuities. [note 1] That rule provided that any future disposition of property must vest within "a life in being plus 21 years". The rule generally affects two types of transactions: trusts and options to
The Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009 (c. 18) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reforms the rule against perpetuities. The Act resulted from a Law Commission report published in 1998. [3] It abolishes the rule against perpetuities in most non-trust contexts, such as easements. [3]
The reforms introduced a statutory limitation on how long income could be accumulated before it must be distributed. In 2009, many of the Act's principles were further reformed by the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009, which introduced a single, simplified perpetuity period of 125 years, replacing the earlier rules. [1]
In addition, the courts have recognised exceptions to the rules against purpose trusts. The erection and maintenance of tombs and monuments is a valid trust, as in Musset v Bingle; [17] this will not be held valid if the gift violates the perpetuity rule, or if the scale of the monument is "capricious and wasteful". [18]
The person granting the option is called the optionor [4] (or more usually, the grantor) and the person who has the benefit of the option is called the optionee (or more usually, the beneficiary). Because options amount to dispositions of future property, in common law countries they are normally subject to the rule against perpetuities and ...
For example, although it was "said that a court of equity determines according to the spirit of the rule and not according to the strictness of the letter," wrote Blackstone, "so also does a court of law" and the result was that each system of courts was attempting to reach "the same principles of justice and positive law". [22]
An example is the Privy Council decision in Attorney General of the Cayman Islands v Wahr-Hansen, [54] where the Council held that gifts to "organisations or institutions operating for the public good" and acting "for the good or for the benefit of mankind" failed, because the definition given was not exclusively charitable.