Opinion ID: 2108741
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Marketable Title Act

Text: Chambers, Norton , and Zahner were decided before the adoption of the Marketable Title Act, Minn.Stat. § 541.023, in 1943, which now makes it material whether a limited interest conveyed is an easement or a fee simple determinable. See Wichelman v. Messner, 250 Minn. 88, 105, 83 N.W.2d 800, 815 (1957). The declared policy of the Marketable Title Act is to prevent restrictions on uses that have not been reasserted as a matter of record within the last 40 years from fetter[ing] the marketability of title. Minn.Stat. § 541.023, subd. 5 (2002). We have recognized that the passage of the Marketable Title Act was a marked departure from the policy and operation underlying our land transfer system. Hersh Properties, LLC v. McDonald's Corp., 588 N.W.2d 728, 734 (Minn.1999). The Act represents a new point of departure for the process of judicial reasoning in real estate law. Wichelman, 250 Minn. at 99, 83 N.W.2d at 812 (internal quotation marks omitted). The adoption of the Marketable Title Act is important to our analysis for two reasons. First, the Marketable Title Act now makes the difference between an easement and a fee simple determinable material to the issue before us because, as we later discuss, an interest in fee simple determinable may be subject to the Act's conclusive presumption of abandonment. Second, public policy reasons behind the Marketable Title Act, such as finality of conveyances and enforcing settled expectations, should be considered in our framework for analyzing the intent of the parties in a conveyance of land for right of way purposes in a deed. [7] Following the passage of the Marketable Title Act, we considered in Walter whether the conveyance of a small tract of a larger parcel of real property used as a schoolhouse site was an easement or a fee simple determinable. 243 Minn. at 161-62, 66 N.W.2d at 883-84. In Walter, the deed at issue conveyed the premises In Trust    for the use, intent and purpose of a site for a School House for the use of the Inhabitants of said School District. Id. at 160, 66 N.W.2d at 882. The deed also provided that whenever said School House ceases to be used as the Public School House for the use of the Inhabitants of said School District then the said Trust shall cease and determine and the said land shall revert to [the grantors]. Id. Importantly, the deed did not use the word forever in the conveying language. We held in Walter that the deed conveyed a fee simple determinable with a possibility of reverter because the intent of the grantor, as expressed in the deed and in light of the surrounding circumstances, was to convey the land to the school district in fee for so long as it was needed for the purpose given. Id. at 162, 66 N.W.2d at 883. We concluded that Norton and Zahner did not apply [b]ecause of the particular factual situations in those cases. Id. at 161-62, 66 N.W.2d at 883.