Coffey & Bernath
Legal Estate in Land
In land law, the term "estate" is a remnant of the English feudal system, which created a complex hierarchy of estates and interests in land. The allodial or fee simple interest is the most complete ownership that one can have of property in the common law system. An estate can be an estate for years, an estate at will, a life estate (extinguishing at the death of the holder), an estate pur auter vie (a life interest for the life of another person) or a fee tail estate (to the heirs of one's body) or some more limited kind of heir (e.g. to heirs male of one's body).
Fee simple estates may be either fee simple absolute or defeasible (i.e. subject to future conditions) like fee simple determinable and fee simple subject to condition subsequent; this is the complex system o
