## Facts

- Viva Parker Lilliston died in 1969, leaving a 1957 will devising a farm to her daughter, Margaret Lilliston Edwards, “upon the conditions” stated elsewhere in the will.
- The will conditioned gifts to Margaret on keeping the property free from encumbrances; if Margaret attempted to encumber or sell her interest, or if creditors tried to subject her interest to her debts, “the interest of [Margaret] therein shall immediately cease and determine,” and the property would vest in Margaret’s six named children “in equal shares in fee simple.”
- The will used the term “fee simple” in other devises, but not in the farm devise to Margaret; the will was drafted by an experienced attorney.
- At execution, Margaret was in financial difficulty, which the testatrix knew.
- In 1979, Margaret sought her children’s consent to sell the farm; one child, Beverly E. Bradley, refused.
- Margaret died in 1980, leaving a will that effectively disinherited Bradley and directed sale of the farm with proceeds distributed among the other children.
- Bradley sued for a declaration that her mother held only a life estate and that the six children held the remainder in fee simple, and sought to prevent disposition inconsistent with that structure.
- The trial court ruled for Bradley; the executor and other siblings appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the will devised the farm to Margaret in fee simple (with an invalid restraint on alienation) or instead created a life estate in Margaret with a valid conditional limitation and remainder to her children.
2. Whether a life estate could be found by implication from the will’s language and scheme, even without the express term “life estate.”

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the decree.
- The Court held the will gave Margaret a life estate in the farm.
- The Court held the six named children held a vested remainder in fee simple, subject to acceleration upon breach of the stated conditions.

## Legal Principles

- A condition that totally restrains alienation of a vested fee simple estate, or imposes forfeiture upon alienation, is generally void.
- A conditional limitation attached to a life estate is valid.
- A life estate may be created by implication if the testamentary instrument, reasonably construed, shows that intent.
- In construing a will, the testator’s intent governs where the will can be reasonably interpreted to effectuate that intent.
- Where the instrument provides that a parent’s interest “cease and determine” upon attempted sale/encumbrance and then vests the property in the children “in fee simple,” the structure supports a life estate in the parent with a remainder to the children, rather than a fee simple in the parent subject to void restraints.

## Conclusion

The court construed the farm devise as granting Margaret only a life estate, with a vested remainder in fee simple to her six named children, because that reading best implemented the will’s protective design and avoided treating the anti-alienation and forfeiture language as an invalid restraint on a fee simple.


Edwards v. Bradley, 227 Va. 224, 315 S.E.2d 196 (Va. 1984)