Does the rule against perpetuities apply to an option to purchase agreement?

Nova Scotia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Silver v. Fulton, 2011 NSSC 127 (CanLII):

The decision in Gomm, supra, would appear to settle the issue of whether the rule applies to an option to purchase agreement. However, a series of cases respecting personal contracts and the rule against perpetuities appear to challenge the authority in Gomm, supra. In South Eastern Railway Company v. Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers (1900) Ltd., [1910] C.C.S. No. 173 the court held that personal covenants do not fall within any rule of perpetuities. In this case a landowner conveyed a strip of land to a railway company while reserving himself the right to make a tunnel at his own expense to join the separated lands severed by the strip he conveyed to the railway. When the landowner sought to exercise his right, the railway company brought an action to restrain the landowner from making a tunnel under the railway company’s line without their consent.

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