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Section 13: Transfer for benefit of unborn person

Transfer of Property Act • Official Statutory Text & Practice Guide

Statutory Regulation
Legal Standard
Competent Court / Tribunal
Act 1882
Section 12 All 137 Sections of Transfer of Property Act Section 14

Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 13

Direct conveyances to unborn persons are impossible under property law because a transfer requires a living transferee capable of receiving seisin and accepting the grant.

  • Core Legal Standard: An unborn person cannot be granted a mere life estate or a truncated interest; they must take the absolute fee simple reversion.
  • Operational Mechanism & Scope: If the deed purports to give a life estate to an unborn child with remainder to another, the entire transfer to the unborn child and all subsequent dispositions fail completely as void dispositions.

This statutory framework establishes clear operational guidelines, balancing legal compliance with procedural safeguards.

Key Landmark Precedents:
  • Girjesh Dutt v. Data Din (AIR 1934 Oudh 35): The court held that a gift to an unborn daughter for life, with remainder to her male descendants, was void under Section 13 because it did not convey the entire remaining interest of the transferor to the unborn daughter.
  • Sridhar v. N. Revanna (2020) 11 SCC 208: The Supreme Court affirmed that a transfer to an unborn person is valid only if preceded by a prior life interest in a living person and the unborn person is granted absolute ownership without any subsequent curtailment.
Legal Commentary:

Drafting transfers for unborn descendants requires extreme technical precision: the deed must create a prior life estate in a person living on the transfer date, and give the unborn person the full fee simple absolute. Attempting to create successive life estates for unborn generations fatally invalidates the settlement.

Section 12 All 137 Sections of Transfer of Property Act Section 14