Allen v. Green

This appeal from a declaratory judgment turns on the construction given to an express reservation, contained in a deed to real property, of the right to remove a building from the land conveyed.

In 1970, Beatrice Allen Fisher owned a parcel of land, formerly in Campbell County but now in Lynchburg, containing 6.74 acres, improved by her antebellum brick home, a stone spring house, and a horse barn. She decided to convey the property to her niece by marriage, Christine D. Allen, but to retain a life estate in a half-acre parcel carved out of the 6.74 acre tract, on which she would construct a…