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In addition to expressly distinguishing between resulting
trusts and constructive trusts, the Georgia Trust Act also
appears to make other substantive changes to prior statutory law.
We have discovered no authority addressing the application of the
Georgia Trust Act to facts analogous to those here. For the
reasons described below, we conclude that the Georgia Trust Act
is inapplicable to the instant case.
The Georgia Trust Act provides that “Except to the extent it
would impair vested rights and except as otherwise provided by
law, this chapter shall apply to any trust regardless of the date
it was created.” Ga. Code Ann. sec. 53-12-3 (1997). Strictly
speaking, it is unlikely at this point that Walter’s or Betty’s
vested property rights would be impaired by application of the
Georgia Trust Act or of any other provision of trust law, for
after decedent died in 1994, the QTIP trust distributed its total
interests in the subject property to Walter and Betty free of
trust.
The question before us, however, is not what interests in
the subject property Walter and Betty possessed after decedent’s
death, but rather what property interests the QTIP trust
possessed immediately preceding decedent’s death, which in turn
depends upon the property interests held by the limited
partnership in 1988 before it quitclaimed its property interests
to the QTIP trustee, Walter, and Betty. More particularly, the
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