What is the legal effect of a will provision that ties the disposition of property to an outside action, such as erecting color-coded flags on parcels?

• A. It creates a valid contract under the will.
• B. It is treated as a separate transfer of property.
• C. It is testamentary in character.
• D. It has no legal effect because the outside action lacks independent significance.

Answer: (D)

In wills, a transfer can’t be made to depend on an outside act that has no legal effect of its own. If the testator tries to condition a bequest on someone performing a purely personal or meaningless act—like erecting color-coded flags that don’t carry any legal consequence—the condition has no independent significance and isn’t enforceable. In that situation, the provision is ignored, and the disposition is treated as if the outside action never existed. That’s why the correct result is that the clause has no legal effect.

The other ideas don’t fit because a will isn’t creating a separate contract or a separate transfer merely by the testator attaching an external condition, and while the provision is still part of the will (testamentary in character), that status doesn’t give the conditional requirement enforceable force.