Life Estate and Future Interests Flashcards
Fee Simple Absolute / Freehold Estate
- highest ownership of land, regardless of future events
- presumed estate when ambiguity arises over grantors intent.
Fee Simple Determinable
The owner’s ownership automatically reverts to the original owner if a certain condition is met
Fee Simple Subject
The original owner has the right to repossess the property if a certain condition is met.
Deed
verbs- convey, grant
parties- grantor, grantee
Will
verbs- devise
parties- testator/ testratix –> devisee
Interstate Succession
verbs used- descend
parties- owner, heir
Rule Against Perpetuities
No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than 21 years after
some life in being at the creation of the interest
Rule Against Perpetuties Example
- Smitha owns a house and has a daughter, Aisha. Aisha has no children in 2024.
- Smitha plans to have a will that gives the house to Aisha’s children once the youngest
grandchild reaches 30. - Think: if Smitha dies, Aisha also dies, and Aisha’s baby is 5 years old. The baby can’t inherit
the house for another 25 years. The waiting period to vest is more than 21 years. - The proposed transfer violates RAP.
Copyright Interests - Joint Authors
1.each author must have made a substantial and valuable contribution to the
work;
2. each author must have intended that [his] [or] [her] contribution be merged
into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole; and
3. each author must have contributed material to the joint work which could
have been independently copyrighted.
Joint Author Interests
Each author of a joint work shares an undivided interest in the entire joint
work. A copyright owner in a joint work may enforce the right to exclude others in
an action for copyright infringement.
Each co-inventor “may make, use, offer to sell, or sell the patented invention within the United States, or import the patented invention into the United States,
without the consent of and without accounting to the
other inventors”
Tenancy in common
- Each tenant in common has undivided, fractional interest in the property. Each may transfer interest to another person. Freely, alienable, devisable, descendible.
- Any conveyance or devise to two or more unmarried persons is presumed to create a tenancy in common, unless it contains language showing an intent to create a joint tenancy.
Tenancy in Common creation
O conveys “to A and B,” or O “to A and B as tenants in common.
Tenancy in common termination
- When tenants in common transfer their interest, property get fractionated, but tenancy
in common does not terminate. - To terminate, one tenant can buy out/inherit/obtain the other tenant’s/tenants’ interests
and re-unify the property
Joint Tenancy
- Tenants have undivided right to use and possess the whole property. But each joint tenant also has right of survivorship. When tenant A dies, A interest in the estate is removed, tenant B automatically becomes sole owner.
- Joint tenancy is is created through
- Time- must acquire interest at the same time
- Title- must acquire title through same interests (ex.same deed)
- Interest- same shares in estate
- Possession- equal right to possess, use, and enjoy
Joint Tenancy (with rights of survivorship)
Creation- O “to A and B as joint tenants with rights of survivorship.
Termination-
- Death of a tenant dissolves their tenancy, and the other tenant takes 100% ownership.
* Conveyance of a joint tenant’s interest will also dissolve the joint tenancy
Nature of Property Rights
- Each tenant has the undivided right to use and
possess the whole property.
* Not devisable or descendible
Tenancy by entirety
4 joint tenancy factors PLUS marriage
James v Taylor (tenancy in common)
Modern presumption is that grantor intends to create tenancy in common rather than Joint Tenancy With Rights of Survivorship (“JTWROS”) if the conveyance is ambiguous.
So its just assumed its tenancy in common unless stated otherwise
Four Unities of JTWROS
Time –
* Tenants have to obtain their interest at the same time. One tenant cannot obtain a
tenancy a month or a year after the other.
- Title
* Tenants have to obtain their interest in the same instrument (deed, will, etc.)
- Interest
* Tenants have to hold equal interests (2 tenants, each must hold 50% interest, if 3, each must hold 1/3 interest, if 4, each must hold ¼ interest, etc.)
- Possession
* Equal rights to enjoy the entire property
Severance
A joint tenant can end (sever) the tenancy by selling/transferring her
interest to a third party.
* Why does the transaction terminate the tenancy?
* The sale transaction dissolves the unity of TIME and TITLE.
* Time – if A sells her interest to a third party, T, T will take the
interest at a different time from B, so that unity (which existed
between A and B) is broken.
* Title – if A sells her interest to T, T will take title by a different
instrument than A or B did, so that unity (which existed between A
and B) is broken.
Leases and JTWROS
- A lease does not convey title to the property and thus does not sever a JTWROS.
- Did HT have a right to eject the tenant upon RJ’s death?
- Yes. The lease could not survive the death of the joint tenant.
Partition (available to both tenants in common and joint tenants)
if a disagreement arises between co-tenants, they can seek partition
– a judicial remedy that separates co-tenants’ property rights in a
commonly owned property
Partition in kind
* Physical division of property – drawing new boundary lines
Partition by sale
* Judicial forced sale – proceeds divided by co-tenants according
to the court order.
Tenancy in Common- Cotenants Rights and Duties
The cotenant in possession does not owe any rent to a cotenant out of
possession, absent an ouster (An ouster occurs when a cotenant in possession
refuses to allow another cotenant to occupy the property)
* All tenants in common have a right to occupy all of the property and if one
chooses not to do so, that does not give that tenant the right to impose an
“occupancy” charge on the other.
* Fairness and equity, when on a final accounting following the sale of the
property, dictate that the one seeking that operating/maintenance contribution
allow a corresponding credit for the value of that tenant’s sole occupancy of the
premises.
