Estates in Land and Future Interests: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Property Topic 2, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
The largest possessory estate the law recognizes: potentially infinite in duration, freely transferable during life and at death, and subject to no grantor-imposed condition that could cut it short.
Words of purchase and words of limitation
Words of purchase identify who takes the interest, while words of limitation describe how long the interest lasts. In a grant to A and her heirs, to A is purchase and and her heirs is limitation, giving A a fee simple.
Numerus clausus
The principle that property owners may only create estates drawn from a closed, standardized menu of recognized forms. It reduces information costs for later buyers who must decipher what any given parcel actually carries.
Fee simple determinable
A fee that automatically ends the instant a stated event occurs, leaving a possibility of reverter in the grantor. Created by durational language such as so long as, while, during, or until.
Possibility of reverter
The grantor future interest that follows a fee simple determinable. Possession springs back to the grantor by operation of law the moment the limiting event happens, with no election or entry required.
Fee simple subject to condition subsequent
A fee that the grantor may cut short, but only by choosing to act, after a stated condition occurs. Signaled by conditional language plus an express reentry clause, and paired with a right of entry.
Right of entry
Also called a power of termination, this retained grantor interest follows a fee simple subject to condition subsequent. Title does not shift until the holder affirmatively elects to terminate, often by suit or reentry.
Fee simple subject to executory limitation
A fee that on the happening of a stated event passes automatically to a transferee rather than back to the grantor. The transferee holds an executory interest, not a reverter or right of entry.
Mahrenholz v. County Board of School Trustees
Illinois case reading a grant of land to be used for school purpose only, otherwise to revert, as durational rather than conditional, so the grantor kept a possibility of reverter and the estate ended automatically.
Fee tail
A historically inheritable-only-by-lineal-descendants estate created by to A and the heirs of his body, designed to keep land in the bloodline. Virtually abolished in the United States and usually read today as a fee simple.
Life estate
A possessory estate measured by the duration of a named person life. The holder may use and transfer what she has, but nothing she conveys can outlast the measuring life.
Life estate pur autre vie
A life estate measured by the life of someone other than the holder. It arises by express grant or when a life tenant transfers her estate, and it ends when the measuring life ends.
Affirmative waste
Voluntary conduct by a present possessor that substantially and unreasonably reduces the value of the property, such as demolishing structures or exhausting timber or minerals beyond ordinary use.
Permissive waste
Waste by neglect: failing to make ordinary repairs, to pay carrying charges such as property taxes and interest, or otherwise letting the premises deteriorate to the future interest holder detriment.
Ameliorative waste
A change by the possessor that increases market value but alters the character of the property. Modern courts usually permit it where conditions have changed and no remainderman is meaningfully harmed.
Baker v. Weedon
Mississippi decision holding that a court may order judicial sale of land held in a life estate with remainders only where sale is necessary for the best interest of all parties, not merely the life tenant.
Term of years
An estate that lasts for a fixed, calculable period with an ascertainable ending date. It is a nonfreehold estate, and the interest waiting behind it in the grantor is a reversion.
Reversion
The interest left in a grantor who transfers less than she owns, such as a life estate carved out of a fee. It is always vested and never subject to the Rule Against Perpetuities.
Vested remainder
A future interest in a transferee that is ready to take possession the moment the prior estate ends, because it is held by an ascertained person and is not subject to any condition precedent.
Contingent remainder
A remainder held by an unascertained person, or subject to a condition precedent, or both. It cannot take possession automatically when the prior estate ends and it is exposed to the Rule Against Perpetuities.
Vested remainder subject to open
A class gift in which at least one class member is ascertained and vested, but the share may shrink as more members qualify. Often called a vested remainder subject to partial divestment.
Rule of convenience
A construction rule closing a class when any member is first entitled to demand possession, cutting off later-born takers. It commonly rescues class gifts that would otherwise violate the perpetuities rule.
Executory interest
A future interest in a transferee that takes by cutting short another estate. A shifting interest divests a transferee, and a springing interest divests the grantor after a gap in possession.
Rule in Shelley Case and Doctrine of Worthier Title
Two old merger rules: the first turns a remainder in the grantee heirs into a remainder in the grantee, and the second recasts a remainder in the grantor heirs as a reversion. Both are widely abolished.
Rule Against Perpetuities
No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, within twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest. It applies to contingent remainders, executory interests, and vested remainders subject to open.