Present Estate and Future Interests - Definitions and Terms

Question 1

What is a Present Estate?

Answer 1

A property interest that entitles the owner to the present use and possession of the property.

Question 2

What is a Future Interest?

Answer 2

A property interest that the owner presently owns but where the right of use and possession is delayed until a future time.

Question 3

What is a Fee Simple Absolute?

Answer 3

The ultimate interest in realy or “full” title. Also known as Fee or Fee Simple for class purposes.

Question 4

What is a Life Estate (LE)?

Answer 4

An estate that lasts only for the duration of the grantee’s life.

Question 5

What is a Life Estate Pur Autre Vie (LEPAV)?

Answer 5

A life estate measured by the life of someone other than the grantee.

Question 6

What is a Fee Tail (FT)?

Answer 6

An estate that passes linearly through the grantee’s bloodline (“issue”).

Question 7

What is to Disentail?

Answer 7

A fee tail is disentailed when the owner presently conveys by deed a fee simple absolute to a grantee.

Question 8

What is a Reversion?

Answer 8

A future interest held by the grantor that, among other things, immediately follows an expirable estate.

Question 9

What is a Remainder?

Answer 9

A future interest, held by a grantee, that immediately follows an expirable estate (such as a life estate or a fee tail).

Question 10

What is a Grantor?

Answer 10

A person who conveys a property interest by deed to another.

Question 11

What is a Grantee?

Answer 11

The party to whom a property interest is conveyed.

Question 12

What are the four attributes of property rights?

Answer 12

1) The right to use and enjoy the property and exclude others.
2) The right to convey the property, either by sale or gift. (Alienability)
3) The right to leave the property by will to a person or entity. (Devisability)
4) A person who dies without a will and owning property dies intestate. A state statute designates the person or people who take the property by intestate succession. The person who takes the property at death if the decedent does not have a will is the decedent’s heir. (Inheritability)

Question 13

What is Alienability?

Answer 13

The right to convey the property, either by sale or gift.

Question 14

What is Devisability?

Answer 14

The right to leave the property by will to a person or entity.

Question 15

What is Inheritability?

Answer 15

The ability of property to pass by intestacy.

Question 16

What is the Numerus Clausus principle?

Answer 16

Under the common law, owners were not free to create just any interest but were limited to specified options.

Question 17

Give an example of words of purchase.

Answer 17

“to A”

Question 18

Give an example of words of limitation.

Answer 18

“and his heirs”

Question 19

When do heirs exist?

Answer 19

When a person dies. A person’s heirs do not exist until that person dies, because an heir must survive the decedent in order to inherit his property.

Question 20

What are the two expirable estates?

Answer 20

Life Estate (LE/LEPAV) and Fee Tail (FT)

Question 21

What is a special occupant?

Answer 21

At common law, a special occupant is a devisee or heir who takes the life estate at A’s death.
“O to A [and his heirs] for the life of B”

Question 22

What is a general occupant?

Answer 22

If the estate was granted to the tenant without further words, he had only a life estate, and there was no person entitled to take it on his death. It went, therefore, to the first person who took possession of the land, the general occupant.

Question 23

What are the attributes of a Remainder?

Answer 23

1) It waits patiently for the estate to expire.
2) It does not cut the expirable estate off.
3) It steps in immediately at expiration; there is no time gap between the expirable estate and the future interests.

Question 24

Who owns a reversion?

Answer 24

The grantor.

Question 25

Who owns a remainder?

Answer 25

The grantee.

Question 26

How do you fully asses a title?

Answer 26

All the interests that is identified must add up to a fee simple. This is called a “quantum” of title.

Question 27

What are the attributes of a Fee Simple Absolute?

Answer 27

The fee is the ultimate interest in realty, and so all attributes of property rights come with it. The fee is alienable, devisable, and inheritable.

Question 28

What are the attributes of a Life Estate?

Answer 28

The life estate is only alienable for the owner’s life. The life estate is generally not inheritable or devisable. At modern law, the life estate pur autre vie is devisable and inheritable (but only as long as the measuring life lives). At common law, the life estate pur autre vie was also devisable and inheritable IF the original conveyance explicitly indicated so (O to A and his heirs for the life of B).

Question 29

What are the attributes of a Fee Tail?

Answer 29

At common law, the fee tail was only alienable for the owner’s life. The fee tail is inheritable but only by bodily heirs. By definition, the fee tail is not devisable because it must go to the grantee’s bodily heirs. The only exception is if A - the owner of the fee tail - conveys a life estate for his own life to another party. As long as A still lives, B can devise the life estate pur autre vie.

Question 30

What are the attributes of a Reversion?

Answer 30

The reversion is alienable, inheritable, and devisable.

Question 31

Name the expirable estates and the two types of future interests that patiently follow them.

Answer 31

The expirable estates are the life estate and the fee tail. They are immediately followed by either a reversion or a remainder.

Question 32

A remainder is vested if . . .

Answer 32

1) There is no condition precedent, AND

2) The owner is born and ascertainable.

Question 33

If a remainder is not vested, then . . .

Answer 33

The remainder is contingent.

Question 34

What is a Condition Precedent?

Answer 34

A condition that is either directly attached to, or before, the remainder.

Question 35

What follows a contingent remainder that is the last interest conveyed?

Answer 35

Reversions.

Question 36

Under the common law, what are the three reasons that a contingent remainder is destroyed?

Answer 36

1) Failure to vest by the expiration of the preceding estate.
2) Merger.
3) Renunciation.

Question 37

What are the attributes of a Vested Remainder if they still exist?

Answer 37

They are alienable, inheritable, and devisable.

Question 38

What is a Contingent Remainder?

Answer 38

A non-vested remainder, a remainder that does not meet both criteria for vesting.

Question 39

What is the doctrine of destructibility of contingent remainders?

Answer 39

At common law, contingent remainders were vulnerable - the could be destroyed automatically as a matter of law if they did not vest before or at the expiration of the preceding estate or before certain events occurred.

Question 40

What is the Rule in Shelley’s Case?

Answer 40

When the grantor conveys an interest in a life estate to a grantee, any remainder in that grantee’s heirs in the same grant is treated as a remainder in the grantee.

Question 41

At common law, what are the two rules that restricted contingent remainders, regardless of the grantor’s intent, and had the effect of clearing title to the property?

Answer 41

Rule in Shelley’s Case and Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP)

Question 42

What are the three future interests that apply to the RAP?

Answer 42

1) Contingent Remainders
2) Remainders to a class of persons (Vested Remainders Subject to Open)
3) Executory Interest

Question 43

An interest that the RAP invalidates is ____ at creation.

Answer 43

Void.

Question 44

What is a “life in being”?

Answer 44

A life in being is any person alive at the time of the grant (or at the testator’s death for a will).

Question 45

When does the Rule in Shelley’s Case apply?

Answer 45

The Rule in Shelley’s Case only applies when the grantor conveys a life interest to a grantee and, in the same grant, a remainder to that grantee’s heirs.

Question 46

What is the result in applying the Rule in Shelley’s Case?

Answer 46

After applying the Rule in Shelley’s Case, the grantee owns the remainder granted to the grantee’s heirs.

Question 47

What is the time limitation of the RAP?

Answer 47

21 years after the death of the lives in being; in other words, one generation after all generations alive at the time of the grant have died.

Question 48

When do you apply the RAP?

Answer 48

You test whether the interests are valid under the RAP at the time of the grant or devise.