Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Even most lawyers have a hard time understanding it. There's a good article that's fairly simple to follow at http://ezinearticles.com/?Rule-Against-Perpetuities&id=83339 . In essence, the idea is to prevent tying up property forever (in perpetuity). Efforts are underway to do away with the rule, because some say it might be unwieldy and restrict the free transfer of property and wealth.

A child of what age? For what purpose and with what depth of understanding? There is no way to enable a 12-year-old to determine whether a possible perpetuity in granddad's will is void under the Rule or not. On the other hand, an average 16-year-old might understand a statement like, "Clauses in contracts, wills and trusts that try to tie up property for an indefinite future period are not enforced by courts because they have long been considered unfair to the rights of future generations to make their own decisions about their property instead of having to obey the instructions of a remote ancestor."

This explanation does not try to state the rule itself, only to explain why we have such a rule.

The Rule itself is stated in 51 words in the Probate Code (see section 21205). Following that, there is a 71-paragraph (in the West annotated version of the Code), giving the Law Revision Commission's attempt to explain the Rule.

Which child do you want it explained to? The Precoscious Toddler? The Unborn Widow? Man I bust myself up. The rule it self is actually pretty simple. It's the application to particular situations that gets really really challenging sometimes. First you must understand that it pertains to remainder interests in trusts and wills. That means, for example, a situation where you write a will that says your house goes to your niece for as long as she lives, and then the house will be sold and the money goes to your nephew's children in equal shares. The nephew's children are called "remaindermen." The rules says that the remainder interest must either belong to the remaindermen, or it must at least be certain who the remaindermen are, within the lifetime of people alive when you die, plus 21 years. In our example, there is no violation of the rule, because your nephew is alive, and within his lifetime plus 21 years (well 9 months in this case) we will know who all his children are and how many shares the money will have to be divided into. So if you die tomorrow, and he then has more children, no problem, they will get a share and we will know who they are within the time limit of the rule. When you start trying to set up trust funds that will keep the money in the family for mutiple generations and just pay the income to support your heirs, however, eventually you run afoul of the rule.