Voluntary Assignment Law and Legal Definition
Voluntary assignment is a transfer, without compulsion of law, by a debtor, of his property to an assignee, in trust, to apply the same, or the proceeds thereof, to the payment of his debts, and to return the surplus, if any, to the debtor.
Such assignments are understood to be instruments voluntarily executed by a failing debtor by which he assigns to some third person, as assignee or trustee, the whole, or sometimes the bulk, of his property, to be by such trustee distributed among the assignor's creditors in satisfaction of their demands. [B. Baer & Co. v. John V. Farwell Co., 66 Ill. App. 397 (Ill. App. Ct. 1896)].
The assignee of a voluntary assignment does not take the property absolutely. He takes the property charged as trustee. The operation of the instrument in such case is to create a trust in the third person in favor of bona fide creditors. [B. Baer & Co. v. John V. Farwell Co., 66 Ill. App. 397 (Ill. App. Ct. 1896)].
