Title 55.1, Title 55.1. Property and Conveyances

All real estate shall, as regards the conveyance of the immediate freehold thereof, be deemed to lie in grant as well as in livery.

Any interest in or claim to real estate, including easements in gross, may be transferred by deed or will. Any estate may be made to commence at a future date, by deed, in like manner as by will, and any estate that would be valid as an executory devise or bequest is valid if cre…

If any interest in or claim to real estate or personal property is disposed of by deed or will for life, with a limitation in remainder over, and the same instrument confers expressly or by implication a power upon the life tenant in his lifetime or by will to dispose absolutely …

If any tenant for life of land make default or surrender, the heirs or those entitled to the remainder may, before judgment, be admitted to defend their right or, after judgment, may assert their right without prejudice from such default or surrender.

Any person having an estate or interest in real or personal property may convey such estate or interest to himself or to himself and another or others, including to himself and his spouse as tenants by the entirety or otherwise, and the fact that one or more persons are both gran…

A writing that purports to pass or assure a greater right or interest in real estate than the person making it may lawfully pass or assure shall operate as an alienation of such right or interest in such real estate as such person might lawfully convey or assure; and when the dee…

When any real estate is conveyed, devised, or granted to any person without any words of limitation, such conveyance, devise, or grant shall be construed to pass the fee simple or other whole estate or interest that the testator or grantor has power to dispose of in such real est…

Every estate in lands so limited that, as the law was on October 7, 1776, such estate would have been an estate tail shall be deemed an estate in fee simple, and every limitation upon such an estate shall be held valid if the same would be valid when limited upon an estate in fee…

Wherever any person by deed, will, or other writing takes an estate of freehold in land, or takes such an interest in personal property as would be an estate of freehold if it were an estate in land, and in the same deed, will, or writing an estate is afterwards limited by way of…

The doctrine of worthier title is abolished in the Commonwealth as a rule of law and as a rule of construction.

A contingent remainder shall not fail for want of a particular estate to support it.

The alienation of a particular estate on which a remainder depends, or the union of such estate with the inheritance by purchase or descent, shall not operate, by merger or otherwise, to defeat, impair, or otherwise affect such remainder.

By deed of bargain and sale, or by deeds of lease and release, or by covenant to stand seized to the use, or deed operating by way of covenant to stand seized to the use, the possession of the grantor shall be deemed transferred to the grantee or other person entitled to the use,…

No trust relating to real estate shall fail nor shall any use relating to real estate be defeated because no beneficiaries are specified by name in the recorded deed of conveyance to the trustee or because no duties are imposed upon the trustee. The power conferred by any such in…

Every deed of release of any estate or interest capable of passing by deed of lease or release shall be as effectual for the purposes expressed in such deed of release, without the execution of a lease, as if the same had been executed.

An immediate estate or interest in or the benefit of a condition respecting any estate may be taken by a person under an instrument, although he is not a party to such instrument; and if a covenant or promise is made for the benefit, in whole or in part, of a person with whom it …

If, in a deed made by one as attorney-in-fact for another, the words of conveyance or the signature is in the name of the attorney, it is as much the principal's deed as if the words of conveyance or the signature were in the name of the principal by the attorney, if it is manife…

All deeds made and executed prior to January 1, 1940, by trustees conveying property sold under deeds of trust in which default was made in the debt secured and as to which irregularities in advertising such sales have occurred shall be held and the same are hereby declared valid…

When any person dies possessed of a life estate in real estate that was assessed with taxes in the name of such life tenant for the year in which such life tenant dies and such taxes are paid for that year by any person other than the remainderman entitled to such real estate, su…

When a petition is filed to remove a cloud on the title to real estate, relief shall not be denied the complainant because he has only an equitable title to such real estate and is out of possession, but the court shall grant to the complainant such relief as he would be entitled…

A. A nonvested property interest is invalid unless: 1. When the interest is created, it is certain to vest or terminate no later than 21 years after the death of an individual then alive; or 2. The interest either vests or terminates within 90 years after its creation. B. A gener…

A. Except as provided in this section and in subsection B of § 55.1-128, the time of creation of a nonvested property interest or a power of appointment is determined under general principles of property law. B. For the purposes of §§ 55.1-124 through 55.1-129, if there is a pers…

Upon the petition of an interested person, a circuit court in the county or city in which the affected property or the greater part of such property is located shall reform a disposition in the manner that most closely approximates the transferor's manifested plan of distribution…

A. Section 55.1-124 does not apply to: 1. A nonvested property interest or a power of appointment arising out of a nondonative transfer, except a nonvested property interest or a power of appointment arising out of (i) a premarital or postmarital agreement; (ii) a separation or d…

A. Sections 55.1-124 through 55.1-129 apply to a nonvested property interest or a power of appointment that is created on or after July 1, 2000. B. For purposes of subsection A, the first sentence of subsection F of § 55.1-124, and subdivision A 8 of § 55.1-127, a nonvested prope…

Sections 55.1-124 through 55.1-129 shall be applied and construed to effectuate their general purpose to make the law uniform with respect to the rule against perpetuities among states enacting it.

Every limitation in any deed or will contingent upon the dying of any person without heirs, heirs of the body, issue, issue of the body, children, offspring or descendants, or other relatives shall be construed a limitation to take effect when such person dies not having such hei…

Pension, profit sharing, stock bonus, annuity, or other employee trusts established by employers for the purpose of distributing the income and principal of such trust to some or all of their employees, or the beneficiaries of such employees, shall not be invalid as violating any…

A. For the purpose of determining whether the terms of an inter vivos trust provide for a duration in excess of that allowed under the rule against perpetuities, the determination of "lives in being" shall be made as of the death of the settlor, if the settlor has at his death th…

A. Except for the transactions set forth in § 55.1-127, which are governed by the provisions of §§ 55.1-124 through 55.1-129, a nondonative transfer of an interest in property fails, if the interest does not vest, if it ever vests, within the period of the common-law rule against…

A. When any joint tenant dies, before or after the vesting of the estate, whether the estate is real or personal, or whether partition could have been compelled or not, his part shall descend to his heirs, pass by devise, or go to his personal representative, subject to debts or …

Any persons may own real or personal property as joint tenants with or without a right of survivorship. When any person causes any real or personal property, or any written memorial of a chose in action, to be titled, registered, or endorsed in the name of two or more persons "jo…

A. Spouses may own real or personal property as tenants by the entirety for as long as they are married. Personal property may be owned as tenants by the entirety whether or not the personal property represents the proceeds of the sale of real property. An intent that the part of…

Any easement obtained for the purpose of exposure of solar energy equipment, facilities, or devices shall be created in writing and shall be subject to the same conveyancing and instrument recording requirements as other easements.

Any instrument creating a solar easement shall include, at a minimum: 1. The vertical and horizontal angles, expressed in degrees, at which the solar easement extends over the real property subject to the solar easement; 2. Any terms or conditions under which the solar easement i…

Married persons shall have the right to acquire, hold, use, control, and dispose of property as if they were unmarried. Such power of use, control, and disposition shall apply to all property of a married person. The marital rights of persons married to each other shall not entit…

A married person may contract and be contracted with and sue and be sued in the same manner and with the same consequences as if he were unmarried, regardless of the date on which the right or liability asserted by or against him accrued. In an action by a married person to recov…

Except as otherwise provided in this section, a spouse shall not be responsible for the other spouse's contract or tort liability to a third party, whether such liability arose before or after the marriage. The doctrine of necessaries as it existed at common law shall apply equal…

A spouse shall not be barred of his right of entry into land by a judgment in the other spouse's lifetime by default or collusion, but after the other spouse's death may prosecute the same by any proper action; or, in the lifetime of the other spouse, if the other spouse will not…

No conveyance or other act by one spouse only of any land that is the inheritance of the other spouse shall be or make any discontinuance thereof, or be prejudicial to the other spouse or his heirs or to any having right or title to the same by his death, but they may respectivel…

When persons married to each other have signed and delivered a writing purporting to convey any estate, real or personal, such writing, whether recorded or not, shall (i) if delivered prior to January 1, 1991, operate to convey from the spouse her right of dower or his right of c…

Notwithstanding the disability of infancy, on or after January 1, 1991, an infant spouse, whether married before or after January 1, 1991, may release his marital rights in the other spouse's real or personal property by uniting in any contract, deed, or other instrument executed…

A married person, whether a resident of the Commonwealth or not, may, by power of attorney duly executed and acknowledged as prescribed in § 55.1-612 or 55.1-613, appoint an attorney-in-fact to execute and acknowledge, for him and in his name, any deed or other writing that he mi…

When a married person, having title to any estate, dies intestate, such estate, or any part of such estate, shall pass according to the provisions of Chapter 2 (§ 64.2-200 et seq.) of Title 64.2, subject to his debts.

The estate known as the equitable separate estate no longer exists and any language in any writing, whenever executed, that purports to convey real property to a person as an equitable separate estate has no legal or equitable significance after January 1, 1991, except as provide…

No presumption of ownership of tangible personal property shall arise by operation of law to prefer one spouse of a marriage over the other if such presumption is based solely on the sex of the spouse.