HARVARD

LAW REVIEW.

VOL. XIX.

NOVEMBER, 1905.

No. 1

PREV

EQUITABLE CONVERSION.1

IV.

REVIOUS to the case of Ackroyd v. Smithson,2 it was held that an unqualified direction by a testator in his will to sell land, or to buy land with his money, created a complete conversion in equity of the land into money, or of the money into land, and that this conversion was effective for all the purposes of devolution at the testator's death, so that land thus converted would devolve in equity as if it were money, i. e., would go to the executor, in whose hands it would be money for all purposes, for example, for the payment of debts and legacies, and for distribution among the testator's next of kin; and so that money thus converted would devolve in equity as if it were land, i. e., would pass as land to the testator's devisee, or descend to his heir,

so that it would neither be assets for payment of debts, nor liable for legacies, and the testator's next of kin would have no claim. upon it.

Upon what theory was it, then, that this equitable conversion by will of land into money or money into land was held to have the effect of causing land to devolve in equity at the testator's death as if it were money, and money as if it were land? It is plain, and always was plain, that a will can produce no effect till the testator's death. If, then, a testator devise his land to trustees

1 Continued from 18 HARV. L. REV. 245.

21 Bro. C. C. 503.

In Beauclerk 2. Mead, 2 Atk. 167, a testator by his will devised his land, in the events which happened, to his sister for life, remainder to A for life, remainder to B for life, and he also directed the residue of his personal estate to be laid out in purchase of land to be settled to the same uses to which his land was devised. By a