Court Opinion

ID: 9669393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:54:47.990528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:56.149339
License: Public Domain

On petition for rehearing.
STRUTZ, Judge.
The plaintiff has filed a petition for rehearing, claiming that the right to have first opportunity to buy any of the property devised to other devisees is an option, and therefore a mere privilege, citing the decision of this court in Larson v. Wood, 75 N.D. 9, 25 N.W.2d 100. He further claims that, as an option, it is not a condition limiting the right of alienation.
We do not believe that the provision in the will creates an option. An option is an agreement by which the owner of property gives to another the privilege of buying the property “at a specified price within a specified time.” American Law of Property, Vol. Ill, Sec. 11.17, p. 47. It is a “contract” by which the owner of property agrees with another that the latter shall have the right to buy the property at a fixed price within a specified time on agreed terms. 91 C.J.S. Vendor and Purchaser § 4, p. 832.
While it is true that an option to purchase has been held by this court to be a mere privilege, we do not believe that the attempted right given to the plaintiff in the testatrix’s will was an option, but was an attempt to impose a condition on the interests devised.
 The plaintiff also contends that since the beneficiaries of the will, the de-visees named as defendants in this action, could sell their property at any time to anyone, by merely giving to the plaintiff first chance to buy, there was no condition restraining alienation which would be repugnant to the fee-simple interests created. We do not believe that this contention has any merit. The property was devised in fee simple. Any limitation on the right of alienation, even the slightest, would be a condition repugnant to the interests created and would be void under Section 47-02-26, North Dakota Century Code. Here, we find no provision as to what would happen to the titles if the devisees failed to give the plaintiff first chance to buy. Had the testatrix given the devisees defeasible titles, then the devises would have been subject to the plaintiff’s privilege of first chance to buy. But where the devisees are given fee-simple titles, conditions cannot be imposed restraining alienation. Langsten v. Wooten, 232 N.C. 124, 59 S.E.2d 605. A restraint upon free and unlimited power of alienation, attached to a devise in fee, is void since the right of alienation is an inseparable incident to an estate in fee.
Petition for rehearing is denied.
BURKE, C. J., and ERICKSTAD and TEIGEN, JJ., concur.