Estates & Interests in Land
~12 min read · Rank fee simple, defeasible fees and life estates, and what each holder may do.
Every ownership question starts with the estate — the bundle of rights the holder actually has. Rank them: fee simple absolute at the top, defeasible fees with strings attached, life estates measured by a lifetime. The exam tests who holds what, and what happens when the condition or the life ends.
Fee simple: absolute and defeasible
Fee simple absolute is maximum ownership: indefinite duration, fully inheritable and transferable, limited only by public powers and private restrictions. Defeasible fees are ownership with a condition. Fee simple determinable ('so long as', 'while', 'during') ends AUTOMATICALLY when the condition breaks — the grantor's retained interest is a possibility of reverter. Fee simple subject to a condition subsequent ('but if', 'provided that') does not end automatically — the grantor must exercise a right of re-entry.
- Absolute: the whole bundle, forever
- Determinable: 'so long as' → automatic reverter
- Condition subsequent: 'but if' → grantor must act to re-enter
Life estates
A life estate lasts for a measuring life — usually the holder's ('to Ann for life'), sometimes another's (pur autre vie: 'to Ann for the life of Ben'). The life tenant may possess, use, and profit from the property but owes duties: no waste (damaging the remainder interest), pay taxes and upkeep. At the measuring life's end, the property passes to the named remainderman (remainder interest) or back to the grantor (reversion). A life tenant can sell or lease only what they have — an interest that dies with the measuring life.
- Measured by a lifetime; pur autre vie = someone else's
- Life tenant: use and profits, but no waste
- Remainder → third party; reversion → grantor
Freehold vs leasehold
Fee simple and life estates are freehold estates — ownership of uncertain duration. Leasehold estates (estate for years, periodic tenancy, estate at will, tenancy at sufferance) are possessory interests measured in time, held by tenants; they are personal property (chattels real) historically, and they coexist with the landlord's reversion. The exam expects the sorting: freehold = ownership; leasehold = possession.
Worked example
A donor deeds a farm 'to the county, so long as the land is used as a park.' Separately, she deeds her cottage 'to my sister for life, then to my nephew.' Years later the county builds a jail on the farm, and the sister leases the cottage to a tenant for ten years, then dies in year three of the lease. Who owns what?
The farm: 'so long as' created a fee simple determinable with a possibility of reverter in the donor (and her heirs). The moment the park use ended, title AUTOMATICALLY reverted — no lawsuit required; the county lost the estate by operating the jail. Had the deed said 'but if it ceases to be a park, grantor may re-enter,' the donor would have needed to exercise re-entry. The cottage: the sister held a life estate and could convey only what she had — the tenant's ten-year lease was valid only against her interest. At her death in year three, the life estate ended and the nephew's remainder became possessory: the lease dies with the measuring life, and the tenant's claim, if any, is against the sister's estate.
Common exam pitfalls
Confusing the two defeasible fees.
'So long as/while' = determinable = automatic reverter. 'But if/provided that' = condition subsequent = grantor must re-enter.
Letting a life tenant convey more than a lifetime.
Any sale or lease from a life tenant ends when the measuring life ends — buyers get an estate pur autre vie at most.
Forgetting the waste doctrine.
A life tenant who strips timber, skips taxes, or lets the roof rot commits waste against the remainderman.
So-long-as snaps back by itself; but-if waits for the grantor's knock; life estates die on schedule.
Recap
- Fee simple absolute: maximal, indefinite, inheritable
- Determinable fee: automatic reverter on condition breach
- Condition subsequent: right of re-entry must be exercised
- Life estate: use without waste; remainder or reversion follows
- Pur autre vie: measured by another's life
- Freehold = ownership; leasehold = possession for a time
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