2.1 Estates, Ownership Forms, Rights, and Interests

Estates in Land

An estate describes the degree, quantity, nature, and extent of a person's interest in real property, focusing on duration and possession. The two master categories are freehold estates (ownership of indefinite duration) and leasehold (less-than-freehold) estates (possession for a fixed or terminable period).

Freehold Estates

Freehold estates last for an indefinite period and represent ownership. The most complete is fee simple absolute the fullest bundle of rights, inheritable, with no conditions attached. Most residential sales transfer fee simple absolute.

A fee simple defeasible estate is ownership subject to a condition. If the condition is violated, title can be lost. Two flavors:

• Fee simple determinable automatically ends on a stated event ("so long as," "until"). Title reverts to the grantor via a possibility of reverter.
• Fee simple subject to a condition subsequent does NOT end automatically; the grantor must take action to reclaim ("but if," "on condition that") via a right of re-entry.

Exam trap: the words used signal which defeasible type. "So long as" = determinable (automatic). "On condition that" = condition subsequent (grantor must act).

Life Estates

A life estate is a freehold limited in duration to the life of a named person. It is not inheritable. The life tenant may use and profit from the property but cannot commit waste (damage that harms future holders).

• Ordinary life estate measured by the life tenant's own life.
• Pur autre vie measured by the life of another person.

When the measuring life ends, the property goes to either:

• A remainderman a third party named by the grantor to receive the property; or
• The grantor (or heirs) by reversion if no remainderman was named.

Worked example: Anna deeds property "to Ben for the life of Carol, then to Dan." This is a life estate pur autre vie. Ben holds possession while Carol lives. When Carol dies, Dan (the remainderman) takes fee simple. Ben's interest ends even though Ben is still alive.

Legal Life Estates

These are created by law, not by a grantor's deed. Examples include homestead (protects a portion of equity from creditors) and, in some states, dower/curtesy (a surviving spouse's interest) tested as contrasts to conventional life estates created by grant.

Concurrent Ownership Forms

When two or more people own one property at the same time, they hold concurrent (co-) ownership. The forms differ chiefly on survivorship what happens to a deceased owner's share.

Tenancy in common is the default when a deed to multiple grantees is silent. Each tenant owns an undivided fractional interest and may sell or will it independently. There is no right of survivorship a deceased co-owner's share passes to that owner's heirs or devisees.

Joint tenancy carries the right of survivorship: when one joint tenant dies, the share passes automatically to the surviving joint tenants, bypassing probate. It cannot be left by will.

The Four Unities (PITT)

To create a valid joint tenancy, four unities must all be present remembered as PITT (often listed Time, Title, Interest, Possession):

1. Possession all hold an undivided right to the whole.
2. Interest each owns an equal share.
3. Time all acquired title at the same moment.
4. Title all received title in the same document.

Breaking any unity severs the joint tenancy as to that share, converting it to a tenancy in common.

Worked example: A, B, and C own as joint tenants (each 1/3). A sells A's interest to D. D now holds 1/3 as a tenant in common because D's title broke the unities of time and title. B and C remain joint tenants with each other (holding 2/3 jointly with survivorship between them). If D later dies, D's 1/3 passes to D's heirs, not to B and C.

Tenancy by the entirety is a special joint tenancy for married couples in some states. Neither spouse can convey alone, and on death the survivor takes the whole; divorce converts it to a tenancy in common.

The Bundle of Rights and Encumbrances

Ownership is described as a bundle of legal rights, summarized as DEEPC: Disposition, Enjoyment, Exclusion, Possession, and Control. A restricted parcel may keep most sticks while losing one (e.g., control limited by an HOA).

An encumbrance is a claim, lien, or limitation that affects title or use but is not ownership itself:

• Liens (financial): mortgages, tax liens, mechanic's liens, judgments.
• Easements (use): a right to use another's land (e.g., a utility easement or an easement appurtenant benefiting an adjacent parcel).
• Encroachments: an improvement extending onto a neighbor's land.
• Deed restrictions / CC&Rs: private limits on use.

An easement appurtenant runs with the land it has a dominant tenement (benefited) and a servient tenement (burdened), and it transfers with the property. An easement in gross benefits a person or company (a utility) with no dominant parcel. These distinctions are heavily tested alongside the ownership forms.

Easements can be created by express grant, by necessity (a landlocked parcel), by prescription (long, open use), or by implication, and terminate by merger, release, or abandonment. A license, by contrast, is mere personal permission revocable at will and does not run with the land an easily missed exam distinction.

Worked example: Lot A is landlocked behind Lot B, both once owned by one person. When the owner sells Lot A, the law implies an easement by necessity across Lot B. Lot A is the dominant tenement; Lot B the servient tenement; the easement passes to each new owner of Lot A.