In Re the Estate of Crystal

352 N.E.2d 885, 39 N.Y.2d 934, 386 N.Y.S.2d 581, 1976 N.Y. LEXIS 2878

Opinions

Memorandum. Order of the Appellate Division affirmed, with costs to all parties filing separate briefs payable out of the estate.

The four agreements between decedent and others, including corporations with which he had been associated in his lifetime, providing for the installment purchase of his shares of stock in the close corporations and for specified retirement benefits, were not illusory transfers or agreements within the meaning of the rule in Newman v Dore (275 NY 371, 379). On the contrary, they conformed to the tests established in Matter of Hillowitz (22 NY2d 107, 110) and Matter of Gross (35 AD2d 830, 831, affd 29 NY2d 739). On any view decedent yielded control over the principal of the sums to be paid. The retained right to designate the beneficiary of the balances remaining upon decedent’s death did not, for the purposes of the Statute of Wills, create testamentary dispositions (Matter of Hillowitz, supra; Matter of Gross, supra).