GLOSSARY OF ESTATES AND FUTURE INTERESTS

A Glossary of Estates in Land and Future Interests

The Roman jurist Javolenus once said “all definitions in matters of civil law are dangerous; there is hardly any that cannot be upset.” Never have I been as sure of the wisdom of this remark as I was after attempting to define the principal terms in the common law system of estates and future interests. I hope that what follows is more a help than a hindrance. I would appreciate comments, suggestions, criticisms (including suggestions that the whole exercise wasn’t worth it). Obviously, I am particularly interested in anything that strikes you either as flat-out wrong or as ambiguous.

absolute -- Not subject to any condition. Usually applied only to fees.

alienation -- A general term for the transfer of property interests. Frequently limited to alienations inter vivos. See also inalienable interest.

ancestor -- The person from whom an heir takes by descent.

base fee -- A determinable fee. See determinable interest.

bar -- To prevent, normally by fine or common recovery, a future interest from ever taking effect. Inchoate dower and reversions or remainders following fees tail are the most frequently barred interests.

beneficial interest -- The right to the rents, profits, or more broadly all benefits from property. See also equitable interest, legal interest.

chattel -- Personal property, as opposed to real property.

chattel real -- An interest in land classified for some purposes, e.g. succession, as personal property rather than real property. The interest of a termor is a chattel real.

class gift -- A grant or devise to a group of people who are described but not named, e.g. “to the children of A”.

common -- See tenancy in common.

common law -- The judge-made law of England received by the United States in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The common law of estates and future interests is normally thought to include the “common law statutes,” i.e., De Donis, Quia Emptores, Uses, and a statute of wills. There is no agreement as to what date should be regarded as the cutoff for the common law, but in the field of estates and land and future interests, “common law” normally refers to some period before the statutory reforms of the middle decades of the 19th century.

common recovery -- A conveyancing device employing fictitious litigation. By common recovery the tenant in tail may dock or bar the entail and convey a full fee simple.

community property -- Not a common law concept but a device of the civil law whereby husband and wife become, roughly, tenants in common, of all that either of them acquires as a result of his/her efforts during the marriage.

concurrent interest -- Any undivided present or future interest shared by more than one person. See also joint tenancy, tenancy by coparcenary, tenancy by the entireties, tenancy in common.

condition precedent -- A condition that by the terms of the grant or devise must be fulfilled prior to interest’s vesting. The condition may be express, e.g. “to Joan if she obtains a college degree”, or implied, e.g., “to Joan’s first-born son” when Joan has no sons.

condition subsequent -- A defeasing condition, one that will terminate or modify the interest after it has vested.

conditional limitation -- An a defeasing condition with further provision as to what is to happen if the condition is fulfilled. The term is ambiguous, but is frequently applied to determinable fees and those subject to an executory limitation but not to fees subject to a right of entry or power of termination retained in the grantor/devisor. Sometimes the term is applied only to fees subject to an executory limitation. See also fee simple conditional.

condominiums -- A form of ownership of real estate, largely the creature of statute, in which the condominium owner holds title to his/her unit and has a concurrent interest in the common property of the condominium.

contingent interest -- Normally applied only to future interests, the phrase implies the presence of conditions precedent.

contingent remainder -- A remainder subject to one or more conditions precedent other than the natural expiration of the preceding estate. See also destructibility.

conveyance -- Alienation of an interest in real property. Sometimes the word is confined to alienations inter vivos.

cooperatives -- A form of holding real estate, in which the cooperator is a stock holder in a corporation which owns real estate and which leases to the cooperator a unit within the cooperative.

coparceners -- A form of concurrent interest held by the female heirs of a decedent who left no male heir. See tenancy by coparcenary.

cotenants -- The holders of a concurrent interest.

coverture -- The period during which a woman is married to a particular husband.

curtesy -- The right of the husband to a life estate in all lands in which his wife had a beneficial interest during coverture. The estate arises upon the birth of child who cries to the four walls and only applies to those lands which the issue of the marriage might inherit. During coverture after the birth of issue, curtesy is described as initiate. After the death of the wife the husband surviving her the curtesy is described as consummate.

De Donis -- A statute in 1285 that, in effect, prevented the holder of fee tail from conveying, in effect, more than a life estate for his life.

defeasible interest -- A determinable interest or one subject to a condition subsequent.

descent -- Succession to an interest in real property upon the death of the holder of the interest.

destructibility -- Contingent remainders are destroyed: (1) if the precedent condition is not fulfilled; (2) at common law if the precedent condition is not fulfilled prior to the expiration of the preceding estate; and (3) at common law, by merger if the holder of the preceding estate acquires the reversion in fee.

determinable interest -- An interest that expires of its own terms upon the happening of some contingency. Words such as “so long as,” “while” and “until” normally create determinable interests. Determinable interests, if not followed by a valid executory interest, are normally followed by an express or implied possibility of reverter in the grantor/devisor.

descent -- Succession to real property when the holder dies intestate.

defeasance -- The termination of an interest other than by its natural expiration. Determinable fees and life estates and fees and life estates subject to a condition subsequent are all defeasible interests.

devise -- Alienation of an interest in real property by will or testament. See also executory devise.

disabling restraint -- See restraints on alienation.

distribution -- Succession to personal property when the holder dies intestate.

dock the entail -- Remove from a fee tail the characteristic that it may only be inherited by the issue of the first tenant in tail.

Doctrine of Worthier Title -- If a grant or devise expressly creates a remainder in the heirs of the grantor/devisor, that remainder is a nullity. The grantor/devisor retains a reversion which passes (unless otherwise disposed of) to his heirs by descent rather than by purchase.

donee -- The holder of an estate, normally a freehold estate. Usually synonymous with “purchaser.”

dower -- The right of a wife who survives her husband to be assigned a life estate in one-third of all lands of which the husband was seised, or entitled to be seised, of an estate in fee simple or fee tail, during coverture, which estate the issue of the marriage, if any, might have inherited. During the marriage dower is described as “inchoate.” Upon the death of the husband, the wife surviving, the wife acquires the right to have dower assigned. Once assigned dower becomes an alienable interest.

entail -- See fee tail.

entireties -- See tenancy by the entirety.

entry -- See right of entry.

equitable interest -- An interest that only the Chancery Court would recognize and defend. (Normally, equitable interests are good only among the parties to the transaction creating the interest, those in privity with them, and those who have notice of the transaction.) See also beneficial interest, legal interest.

executory limitation -- See fee subject to an executory limitation.

estate -- The right to possession of real property. (Normally the term estate is applied only to freehold interests, but its application to non-freehold interests, e.g. “an estate for years,” is accurate.)

estate for years -- See “term.”

executed -- See Uses.

executory devise -- A springing or shifting use created by will.

executory interest -- Springing and shifting uses and executory devises. Specifically, any future interest created in someone other than the grantor/devisor that cannot take effect upon the natural expiration of the preceding estate. Examples of executory interests include interests that take effect upon the defeasance of a present fee or life estate and upon the defeasance of a reversion or remainder in fee or for life and feoffments in futuro.

expiration -- See natural expiration.

farm -- See fee farm.

fee -- A descendible freehold estate of potentially infinite duration.

fee farm -- A fee interest subject to a rent.

fee simple -- A fee that may be inherited by the holder’s heirs general, i.e. anyone who would qualify as the holder’s heir.

fee simple conditional -- Prior to the statute De Donis, grants in the form “to A and the heirs of his body” were held to create a fee in A subject to the precedent condition that A have issue. These are called fees simple conditional.

fee simple determinable -- See determinable interest.

fee subject to an executory limitation -- A defeasible fee followed by an executory interest.

fee subject to a term of years -- The interest of the landlord in a landlord-tenant relationship, sometimes called the landlord’s “reversion.”

fee tail -- A fee that may be inherited only by the issue (or a class of the issue) of the first donee in tail.

fee tail female -- A fee tail that may be inherited only by the female issue of the first donee in tail.

fee tail general -- A fee tail that may be inherited by any of the issue of the first donee in tail.

fee tail male -- A fee tail that may be inherited only by the male issue of the first donee in tail.

fee tail special -- A fee tail that may be inherited only by the issue of the first donee in tail and a particular spouse of his/hers.

female -- See fee tail female.

feoffment -- A common law mode of conveyance in which seisin was physically transferred from the conveyor to the conveyee.

feoffment in futuro -- A grant or devise to begin at some time after the effective date of the instrument. Feoffments in futuro were void at common law but could be created by way of executory interest.

feoffment to uses -- A feoffment in which the feoffor retains the beneficial interest in the property in himself or conveys it to someone other than the feofees. See also uses, Uses.

fine -- A conveyancing device employing fictitious litigation. Used to bar dower and, in some periods, to dock and bar entails.

forfeiture -- At common law the holder of interests in real property forfeited his interest by committing treason or felony, also by certain types of waste and by certain types of attempts to convey more than he had.

forfeiture restraint -- See restraints on alienation.

freehold -- Estates for life and in fee. Estates that give the tenant seisin as well as the right to possession.

future interest -- An interest in real property that may be fully exercised or enjoyed only at some future time. When applied to estates, the term “future interest” refers to a right to possession to commence some time in the future. The fact that an estate is a future interest does not necessarily mean that it is not alienable, devisable or descendible.

general -- See fee tail general.

gift -- The alienation of property for no consideration. Also, the conveyance inter vivos of a possessory interest in land.

grant -- The conveyance inter vivos of a non-possessory interest in land. More broadly, any alienation of an interest in land inter vivos.

heir -- The person or persons entitled to succeed to the interests in real property of someone who is deceased. inalienable interest -- At common law contingent remainders, executory interests, possibilities of reverter and rights of entry could not normally be conveyed inter vivos. All these interests could descend to the heirs at law of the deceased holder, and contingent remainders and executory interests could be devised. Rights of entry could not be devised, and there was doubt whether possibilities of reverter could be devised.

inchoate dower -- See dower.

inter vivos -- “Between living persons.” Frequently used to describe alienations where the alienor is living at the time of the effective date of the alienation.

interest -- The broadest term for rights, powers and privileges that the law will recognize in property.

intestate -- Without a will.

issue -- Lineal descendants (children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc.)

joint tenancy -- A concurrent interest in which all tenants acquire at the same time and by the same instrument an equal share in the same interest, with the right to succeed to each other. See also severance.

jure uxoris -- An estate of the husband in the land of his wife. The estate gives the husband the right to the profits of the land and to manage and control them during coverture.

legal interest -- An interest that the central royal courts of common law would recognize and defend. Normally, legal interests are “good as against the whole world” or at least against most third parties. See also beneficial interest, equitable interest.

limitation -- A description of the type of interest in question (for how long, under what conditions, etc.), but not who is to take it. See also conditional limitation.

male -- See fee tail male.

married women’s property acts -- Statutes passed in virtually every common law jurisdiction during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They normally state that married women may hold and convey property as if they were unmarried.

measuring life -- The life or lives within which an interest must vest in order to be valid under the Rule Against Perpetuities, or the life that determines the length of an estate pur autre vie.

merger -- When one person comes to hold an estate for years or for life and a future interest in fee simple the “lesser” interest for years or life combines with the interest in fee simple giving the holder just a fee simple. Merger does not take place when the interests are created at the same time, nor when the first interest is in fee tail, nor when there is an intervening vested interest. Merger does take place if a current possessor for life later acquires a reversion or remainder in fee, even if there is an intervening contingent remainder. See destructibility.

moiety -- The share in property of a cotenant other than a tenant by the entirety.

natural expiration of an estate -- Natural expiration of an estate occurs only upon the happening of any of the following the events: (1) the death of a tenant of a life estate; (2) the death of the measuring life of an estate pur autre vie; (3) the death of a tenant in tail when all the issue of the first donee in tail to whom the estate was limited have predeceased the tenant.

non-freehold -- Estates for years, periodic tenancies, tenancies at will, and tenancies at sufferance. Estates that give the tenant only possession and not seisin.

partition -- The right of one concurrent tenant to demand that his share of the tenancy be given to him solely, either in kind or after a judicial sale.

partnership -- See tenancy in partnership.

periodic tenancy -- A non-freehold estate that lasts from one period time to another unless and until terminated by notice from landlord to tenant or vice versa. Tenancies from week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year are the most common forms (though not the only possible forms) of periodic tenancies.

Perpetuities -- See Rule Against Perpetuities.

possibility of reverter -- A future interest in the grantor/devisor giving the holder the right to possession immediately upon the termination of a determinable interest.

power of appointment -- A device used in modern estate planning whereby the holder of the power has the power of determining to whom a particular interest should go. Powers may be inter vivos or testamentary, or both. They may be general, in which case the holder of the power may appoint to anyone, including him- or herself, or they may be special, in which case the holder of the power may choose among a specified group or class of people or insitutions. (Charitable powers of appointment are quite common.)

power of termination -- See right of entry.

precedent -- See condition precedent.

present estate -- An estate in which the holder has the immediate right to possession.

primogeniture -- A system of intestate succession in which the eldest male heir is preferred over others in the same degree of kinship.

promissory restraint -- See restraints on alienation.

pur autre vie -- For the life of another. An estate pur autre vie is a life estate for the life of someone other than the tenant.

purchase -- A description of who is to take the interest in question. Confusingly, in the vocabulary of estates in land “purchase” has nothing to do with whether consideration has passed for the transaction. A purely donative transaction will contain “words of purchase,” describing the alienee(s).

qualified fee -- An ambiguous term sometimes referring to defeasible fees generally and sometimes describing only determinable fees.

Quia Emptores -- A statute in 1290 that prohibited the subinfeudation of land and, in effect, permitted tenants alienate by substitution without obtaining permission of their lords.

remainder -- A future interest in someone other than the grantor/devisor that may become possessory upon the natural expiration of a preceding estate. See also contingent remainder, vested interest.

rent -- The right to a money payment issuing out of land normally held by non-freeholder and normally payable to the landlord (freeholder).

restraints on alienation -- A condition or covenant in a grant or devise that expressly limits the power of the grantee or devisee to alienate an otherwise alienable interest. Restraints on alienation are traditionally categorized into three types: (1) disabling restraints, those which purport to remove the characteristic of alienability from the interest in question; (2) forfeiture restraints, those which purport to make the interest defeasible if an attempt is made to alienate it; (3) promissory restraints, in which the grantee/devisee covenants not to alienate the interest. Most restraints on alienation of freehold interests are void.

resulting use -- After the Statute of Uses a legal interest in a feoffor to uses who attempted to retain all or part of the beneficial interest in him/herself.

reversion -- A vested future interest in the grantor/devisor, expressed in the grant or devise or implied when the grantor devisor fails to convey the entire interest that he/she has. See also fee subject to a term of years.

reversionary interest -- Any future interest in the grantor/devisor, i.e., reversions, rights of entry and possibilities of reverter.

reverter -- A possibility of reverter. Also, a future interest in the grantor following upon a fee simple conditional.

right of entry -- A future interest in the grantor/devisor, which gives him/her the option of taking back an estate that has been granted on a condition subsequent. For our purposes rights of entry and powers of termination are synonymous.

Rule Against Perpetuities -- “No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life or lives in being at the creation of the interest.” For perpetuities purposes, all interests retained by the grantor/devisor are vested; executory interests do not vest until they become possessory (an exception being made for executory interests subject to no contingency other than the termination of a determinable term of years); and remainders vest when they become vested remainders.

Rule in Shelley’s Case -- If a grant or devise creates some freehold estate in an ancestor and if, in the same conveyance, a remainder of the same quality (legal or equitable as the case may be) is expressly limited to the heirs or heirs of the body of that same ancestor, then the phrase “and his heirs” or “and the heirs of his body” is treated as words of limitation not words of purchase, i.e. the ancestor takes both the freehold estate created in him and the remainder.

severance -- The power to defeat the right of another joint tenant to succeed to the interest of joint tenant by conveying all or part of the interest to another.

Shelley’s Case -- See Rule in Shelley’s Case.

shifting use -- An executory interest the effect of which is to shift a vested interest from one donee to another. Hence, any future interest created in a third party that defeases a prior vested interest.

simple -- See fee simple.

special -- See fee tail special.

springing use -- An executory interest that springs out of the seisin of the seisin of the grantor/devisor. Hence, an executory interest that makes the grantor/devisor’s interest defeasible. Feoffments in futuro are springing uses.

statute -- See De Donis, married women’s property acts, Quia Emptores, Uses, Wills.

subinfeudation -- A form of alienation in which the grantor retained the feudal lordship of the land in himself. Subinfeudation was abolished (prospectively) by the statute Quia Emptores.

subsequent -- See condition subsequent.

substitution -- A form of alienation in which the grantor substitutes the grantee for himself as tenant of the next higher lord.

succession -- The broadest term for the passage of property interests upon the death of the holder intestate. Sometimes expanded to include the passage of title to property by will.

sufferance -- See tenancy at sufferance.

tenancy -- Historically synonymous with estate. Today, we tend to use the word “tenancy” to describe non-freehold estates. See also periodic tenancy and below.

tenancy at sufferance -- A situation in which the landlord may choose to treat the tenant as holding an estate or may treat him as a trespasser. Normally this arises when the tenant has held over after the end of his term.

tenancy at will -- A non-freehold estate that is immediately terminable by notice by either party at any time.

tenancy by coparcenary -- A form of concurrent interest in which the coparceners hold as a unit like joint tenants but without the right to succeed to each other. Coparceners had a common law right to partition their tenancy.

tenancy by the entirety -- A concurrent interest, much like joint tenancy, except that the tenants must be husband and wife, and there is no power of severance.

tenancy in common -- A concurrent interest which fails to be joint tenancy either because it is expressly declared not be one or because it is not characterized by the unity of time, title or interest. Upon the death of one tenant in common his/her interest passes to his/her heirs or devisees and not to the other tenants in common.

tenancy in partnership -- Not a common law concept, but a creation of statute, whereby the partners become, roughly, tenants in common, of the property acquired by the partnership for partnership purposes.

tenant -- The current possessor of a tenancy.

term of years -- A non-freehold estate that will last for some fixed period of days, months or years.

testator -- The maker of a will.

testament -- For our purposes, synonymous with “will.”

trust -- An active use, one not executed by the Statute of Uses because the trustees have something to do other than simply holding legal title.

use -- The beneficial interest in property the legal title to which was held by feofees, whose sole function was hold the legal title. See resulting use, springing use, shifting use.

Uses -- A statute in 1536 that converted (“executed”) equitable uses into legal interests. See also trusts.

vest -- To take effect. Opposite of contingent. “Vest” is probably the most difficult word on this list. The problem with it is that future interests may vest (“vest in interest”) before they have become possessory (“vest in possession”), if there is no precedent condition to their becoming possessory other than the natural expiration of the preceding estate. At common law vested interests were alienable even if they had not become possessory.

vested interest -- An interest subject to no conditions precedent other than the natural expiration of the preceding estate. Since executory interests cannot follow after the natural expiration of a preceding estate, executory interests cannot become vested until they become possessory. By convention all interests retained by the grantor (reversions, possibilities of reverter and rights of entry) are vested.

vested remainder -- A remainder subject to no precedent condition other than the natural expiration of the preceding estate.

vested subject to partial divestment --
vested subject to open -- A future interest in a class, one or more members of which have been identified, but which may still be increased by newly-identified members. A future interest “to the children of A” is vested subject to partial divestment or vested subject to open if A has one or more children and is still alive.

waste -- Acts that diminish the capital value of land. Possessors of land are frequently liable to holders of future interests in the same land if the former commit waste.

will -- A form of alienation to take effect on the death of the testator. Wills have no effect while the testator is alive and may be changed or revoked so long as the testator lives and is competent. See also tenancy at will.

Wills -- A statute in 1540 that permitted the devise of legal interests in real property. More broadly, any statute that so provides.

words of limitation -- See limitation.

words of purchase -- See purchase.

Worthier Title -- See Doctrine of Worthier Title.

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last modified: 03/18/11