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Section 25: Conditional transfer

Transfer of Property Act • Official Statutory Text & Practice Guide

Statutory Regulation
Legal Standard
Competent Court / Tribunal
Act 1882
Section 24 All 137 Sections of Transfer of Property Act Section 26

Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 25

Conditions precedent governing the creation of property interests are void ab initio if they demand the performance of an act that is impossible, forbidden by law, fraudulent, immoral, or opposed to public policy.

  • Core Legal Standard: Where an interest in property is created to take effect only upon the fulfillment of a condition precedent, the legal validity of the transfer depends upon the lawfulness of that initial requirement.
  • Operational Mechanism: If the condition precedent requires the performance of an impossible act (such as walking a hundred miles in an hour), involves criminal or tortious acts forbidden by penal law, tends to defeat statutory enactments, causes injury to person or property, or promotes immorality or disruption of the marital relationship, the condition is completely void.

Crucially, in conditions precedent under property law, the invalidity of the condition fatally destroys the transfer itself: because the condition cannot lawfully be fulfilled, the estate never vests, and the transaction is a total legal nullity.

Key Landmark Precedents:
  • Bhabani Prasad v. Smt. Radharani (AIR 1981 Cal 378): The Calcutta High Court held that a condition precedent requiring a daughter-in-law to abandon and divorce her husband to inherit property was immoral and opposed to public policy under Section 25, rendering the conditional transfer completely void.
  • Wilkinson v. Wilkinson (1871) LR 12 Eq 604: The court held that a condition requiring a married beneficiary to live apart from her husband is unlawful and contrary to the institution of marriage, rendering any transfer dependent on such a condition void.
Legal Commentary:

In property transactions, conditions precedent must be strictly distinguished from conditions subsequent: if a condition precedent is void under Section 25, the transfer fails completely; but if a condition subsequent is void, the condition alone is ignored, and the transfer becomes absolute under Section 28.

Section 24 All 137 Sections of Transfer of Property Act Section 26