Case information

Successions — Sale — Nullity — Agreement on future succession — Prescription — Extinctive prescription — Whether Court of Appeal erred in law in brushing aside criteria for agreement on future succession given that four conditions recognized in jurisprudence were met and that prohibition against such agreements is of public order and involves absolute nullity because of their immorality under law of successions in Quebec — Civil Code of Québec, art. 631.

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In September 2014, the respondent, Lorraine Adam, and her mother, Pauline Tétreault — respectively the sister and mother of the applicant, Denis Adam — entered into a transaction for the sale of the sugar bush owned by Ms. Tétreault. In July 2020, shortly after his mother’s death, Mr. Adam brought an action seeking the annulment of the act of sale of the sugar bush, arguing that it was an agreement on future succession, which is prohibited by art. 631 of the Civil Code of Québec and contrary to public order.

The Superior Court dismissed the action to annul the act of sale of the sugar bush. The judge found that the action was prescribed and that Mr. Adam was wrong in arguing that the act of sale was null on the ground that it was an agreement on future succession. The clause in the act of sale concerning the mode of payment of the sale price for the sugar bush did not meet the four conditions developed in the jurisprudence for characterizing a contract as an agreement on future succession. The parties’ intention was that payment of the price be subject to a term corresponding to Ms. Tétreault’s death, not that the sale price be paid out of the respondent’s share in the future succession. The Court of Appeal dismissed Mr. Adam’s appeal with legal costs. It found that the trial judge had made no reviewable error in rejecting Mr. Adam’s argument that the transaction was an agreement on future succession and thus absolutely null. The trial judge’s conclusion was supported by the evidence.