Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

destructibility of contingent remainders

Property. The common-law doctrine requiring a future interest to vest by the time it is to become possessory or else suffer total destruction (the interest then reverting to the grantor). ( This doctrine has been abolished in all but a few American jurisdictions; the abolishing statutes are commonly termed anti-destructibility statutes. - Also termed destructibility rule. "The destructibility rule still exists in its old commonlaw form in Florida. Various authors have suggested that it also exists unchanged in Arkansas, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee; but there are no statutes or recent decisions to clarify the rule's status in these states." Thomas F. Bergin & Paul G. Haskell, Preface to Estates in Land and Future Interests 79 n.46 (2d ed. 1984).