Opinion ID: 3186185
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Reverter

Text: The remaining question is whether MBC’s sale of the Property to Invest Atlanta constitutes “use” of the Property for the purpose of the application of the Reverter. Certainly, there is authority for the proposition that a grantee’s use of real property for a specified purpose may be inconsistent with or repugnant to the grantee’s conveyance of such property to another. See Statham v. Kelly, 276 Ga. 877(584 SE2d 246) (2003); Wills v. Pierce, 208 Ga. 417 (67 SE2d 239) (1951). However, as is the case in both Statham v. Kelly and Wills v. Pierce, this conflict arises in the circumstance in which the real property is to be used by the grantee as the grantee’s home or residence. Thus, the sale of the real estate is, on its face, incompatible with the specified residential use in regard to the attempted reversionary interest. However, this is not the situation in the case at hand. To begin with, the Restriction and the Reverter are legally enforceable. 13 See Division II, supra. Second, the express “use” for the donated Property is that of “educational purposes” as specified in the Deed. Certainly, as a general proposition, real property may be “used” for educational purposes in many ways, which might in another context include being sold to raise money for educational purposes. But, the very specific language of the Restriction and the Reverter militate against such a broad construction of use. As noted, the Restriction provides not only that the Property be used for “educational purposes” but then lists the fields of study which qualify as such “educational purposes.” What is more, the Reverter is triggered when grantee MBC itself ceases to use the Property “for the particular educational purposes above set forth” in the Deed. Thus, even if MBC’s utilization of the proceeds from the sale of the Property could qualify as its “use” of the Property generally for educational purposes, this does not address the particularity of educational purpose set forth in the Deed. Moreover, once the Property is alienated, MBC loses control over it for any purpose, and as to the sale proceeds, their use and eventual exhaustion would be pragmatically impossible to monitor in regard to any question of application of the Restriction and the Reverter. Consequently, 14 in the present circumstances, sale of the Property to Invest Atlanta does not qualify as MBC’s “use” of the Property as contemplated in the Deed.