Court Opinion

ID: 9664670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:25:11.174894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:08.470276
License: Public Domain

ON Petition to Reheau.
A courteous, respectful and dignified petition to rehear has been filed herein. This petition again calls our attention to the question, and said to be the only question, raised by the demurrer to the bill of complaint which was *512sustained by the Chancellor that the clause quoted from the deed in the original opinion was a restraint upon alienation, and therefore void. We very earnestly considered this question originally, the authorities cited by counsel in their briefs, and made in addition thereto an extended independent investigation on the question.
Frankly we felt that by the opinion it was made known to the parties that we did not consider the clause quoted in the original opinion as such a restraint upon the alienation of the property as to be void. We cannot see why parties to this deed did not have the right to enter into an option to repurchase this property so long as this option did not violate the rule against perpetuities. We do not think that it can be questioned that the parties independently of the deed could have entered into a binding option to repurchase this property so long as the option did not violate the rule against perpetuities. The reason for the application in some cases of the rule that a restraint on the alienation in a deed is void is because that when such a restraint is placed in the conveyance that then this prohibits the parties from selling or transferring the property as they see fit. The rule holding that a restraint on alienation is thus void is very close akin to the rule against perpetuities. The two may be considered somewhat in the same light. Since parties may enter into an option, so long as it does not violate the rule against perpetuities, then we see no reason why such an option might not be placed in a deed conveying the property. If at the time such option may be executed the parties who have the option to purchase do not wish to purchase under the terms of the option then of course the grantee in the deed has the perfect right to convey the property as they see fit. If such an option was inde*513pendently taken and recorded it would likewise be a restraint on alienation, that is, the party could not sell without having a release from the option. It thus seems to us that an option of the kind when taken and agreed to by the parties, as it must have been in this case when they accept the deed containing the option therein and record it and live under it, that there was an agreement between them and if the option is valid it may, if those holding the option desire, be enforced. It is for these reasons that we think the clause contained in this deed does not constitute such a restraint upon the alienation of the property as to be void.
The bill in this cause prayed for a declaration of the rights of the parties. It was for this reason that we set forth in the original opinion the rights of the parties. For the reasons above stated the petition to rehear must be denied.