Estate

Estate in the American Legislation

Definition of Estate provided by the Uniform Probate Code:

Includes the property of the decedent, trust, or other person whose affairs are subject to this [code] as originally constituted and as it exists from time to time during administration.

Estate

In the Past

This word his several meanings: 1. In its most extensive sense, it is applied to signify every thing of which riches or, fortune may consist and includes personal and real property; hence we say personal estate, real estate. 8 Ves. 504. 2. In its more limited sense, the word estate is applied to lands, It is so applied in two senses. There is further information on this topic in this legal reference. The first describes or points out the land itself, without ascertaining the extent or nature of the interest there; as “my estate at A.” The second, which is the proper and technical meaning of estate, is the degree, quantity, nature and extent of interest which one has in real property; as, an estate in fee, whether the same be a fee simple or fee tail; or an estate for life or for years, etc. Lord Coke says: Estate signifies such inheritance, freehold, term of years, tenancy by statute merchant, staple, eligit or the like, as any man hath in lands or tenements, etc. Co. Lit. 650, 345 a. See Jones on Land Office Titles in Penna. 165-170.

Developments

Estates in land may be considered in a fourfold view with regard, 1. To the quantity of interest which the tenant (see more about this popular legal topic in the U.S. encyclopedia) has in the tenement. 2. To the time during which that quantity of interest is to be enjoyed. 3. To the number and connexion of the tenants. 4. To what conditions may be annexed to the estate.

Details

The quantity of interest which the tenant (see more about this popular legal topic in the U.S. encyclopedia) has in his tenement is measured by its duration and extent. An estate, considered in this point of view, is said to be an estate of freehold and an estate less than freehold.

Other Aspects

Freehold estates are of inheritance and not of inheritance. An estate in fee, (see this concept in the corresponding entry on this reference) which is the estate most common in the United States of America, is a freehold estate of inheritance. Estates of freehold not of inheritance, are the following:

More Information

Estates for life. An estate for life is a freehold interest in lands, the duration of which is confined to the life or lives of some particular person or people or to the happening or not happening of some uncertain event.

Other Issues

Estates for life are divided into conventional or legal estates. The first created by the act of the parties and the second by operation of law.

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Life estates may be created by express words; as, if A conveys land to B, for the term of his natural life; or they may arise by construction of law, as, if A conveys land to B, without specifying the term or duration and without words of limitation. In the last case, B cannot have an estate in fee, according to. the English law and according to the law of those parts of the United States of America which have adopted and not altered the common law in this particular, but he will take the largest estate which can possibly arise from the grant and that is an estate for life. Co. Litt. 42, a. So a conveyance ” to I M and his generation, to endure as long as the waters of the Delaware (see more about this State laws here) should run,” passes no more than a life estate. 3 Wash. C. C. Rep. 498. The life estate may be either for a man's own life or for the life of another person and in this last case it is termed an estate per autre vie. There are some estates for life, which may depend upon future contingencies, before the death of the person to whom they are granted; for example, an estate given to a woman dum sola fuerit or durante viduitate or to a man and woman during coverture or as long as the grantee must dwell in a particular house, is determinable upon the happening of the event. In the same way, a house usually worth one hundred dollars a year, may be granted to a person still he must have received one thousand dollars; this will be an estate for life, for as the profits are uncertain and may rise or fall, no precise time can be fixed for the determination of the estate. On the contrary, where the time is fixed, although it may extend far beyond any life, as a terw for five hundred years, this does not create a life estate.

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The estates for life created by operation of law, are, 1st. Estates tail after possibility of issue extinct. 2d. Estates by the curtesy. 3d. Dower. 4th. Jointure. Vide Cruise. Dig. tit. 3; 4 Kent, Com. 23; 1 Brown's Civ. Law, 191; 2 Bl. Com. 103. The estate for life is somewhat similar to the usufruct (see this concept in the corresponding entry on this reference) of the civil law.

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The incidents to an estate for life, are mainly the following: 1. Every tenant (see more about this popular legal topic in the U.S. encyclopedia) for life, unless restrained by covenant or agreement, may of common right take upon the land demised to him reasonable estovers or bote's. Co. Litt. 41.

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The tenant (see more about this popular legal topic in the U.S. encyclopedia) for life or his representatives, must not be pre-judiced by any sudden determination of his estate, because such determination is contingent or uncertain. Co. Litt. 55. Under tenants or lessees of an estate for life, have the same and even greater indulgences than the lessors, the original tenants for life; for when the tenant (see more about this popular legal topic in the U.S. encyclopedia) for life must not have the emblements, because the estate decides by his own act, the exception must not reach his lessee, who is a third person. l Roll. Ab. 727 2 Bl. Com. 122. Estates by the curtesy. An estate by the curtesy is an estate for life, created by act of law, which is defined as follows: When a man marries a woman, seised at any time during the coverture of an estate of inheritance, in severalty, in coparcenary or in common and has issue by her born alive and which migbt by possibility inherit the same estate as heir to the wife and the wife dies in the lifetime of the hushand, he holds the lands during, his life by the curtesy of England (see more about this legal system) and it is immaterial whether the issue be living at the time of the seisin or at the death of the wife or whether it was born before or after the seisin. Litt. s. 35; Co. Litt. 29, b; 8 Co. 34. By Act of Asserably of Pennsylvania (see more about this State laws here) , the birth of issue is not necessary, in all cases where the issue, if any, would have inherited. There are four requisites indispensably necessary to the existence of this estate: 1. Marriage. 2. Seisin of the wife, which must have been seisin in deed and not merely seisin in law; it seems, however, that the rigid rules of the common law, have been relayed, in this respect, as to what is sometimes called waste or wild lands. 1 Pet. 505. 3. Issue. 4. Death of the wife. The marriage must be a lawful marriage; for a void marriage does not entitle the hushand to the curtesy; as if a married man were to marry a second wife, the first being alive, he would not be entitled to the curtesy in such second wife's estate. But if the marriage had been merely voidable, he would be entitled, because no marriage, merely voidable, can be annulled after the death of the parties. Cruise, Dig. tit. 5, c. 1, s. 6. [1]

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Notes and References

1. Partialy, this information about estate is based on the Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1848 edition. There is a list of terms of the Bouvier's Law Dictionary, including estate.

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