§ 8.01-94.When sold, leased or exchanged.

This section addresses property split between a present interest and a future one — a life estate, or an interest that lasts until some other event, with a remainder or other interest limited on top of it, vested or contingent, in someone else. The holder of that present interest, or that person’s committee, guardian, or conservator, or, where the estate runs for the life of someone else, that person’s heir or personal representative, may sue to obtain a sale, lease, or exchange of the entire fee simple or absolute estate — as long as the instrument creating the interests does not forbid it. That relief is available when the remaindermen, whether already living or still to be born or created, cannot at the time give their assent, or when the remainder itself is contingent or defeasible. A remainderman, or that person’s guardian, conservator, or committee, may likewise sue to sell, lease, or exchange just the remainder interest.

Every person with a present or contingent interest in the property, other than the plaintiff, must be made a defendant. If a remainderman has not yet been born or legally created when the bill is filed, the suit does not abate for that reason — the unborn or uncreated person is named as a defendant under the designation “person unknown or person yet to be born or created,” and the court appoints a guardian ad litem to defend that interest.

The court can decree the sale, lease, or exchange only if it is clearly shown, independent of any admissions in the pleadings, that the plaintiff’s interest will be served and no one else’s rights will be violated. A credit sale requires the court to take ample security, and if the credit sale involves real estate, the court must reserve a lien on it. Property acquired through an authorized exchange is held by the same people, in the same way, to the same extent, and subject to the same conditions that governed the property given up in the exchange.