2.1 Estates, Ownership Forms, Rights, and Interests

Estates in Land

An estate is the degree, quantity, nature, and extent of a person's interest in real property. Estates fall into two great branches: freehold estates (ownership for an indefinite duration) and leasehold estates (possession for a fixed or determinable term). The license exam leans heavily on distinguishing these, because only freehold estates carry true ownership.

Freehold estates divide further into estates of inheritance and estates not of inheritance:

• Fee simple absolute — the highest and most complete form of ownership; perpetual, inheritable, and the default the law presumes when a deed says "to A and her heirs."
• Fee simple defeasible — ownership that can be lost if a stated condition occurs (e.g., "so long as the land is used as a park").
• Life estate — ownership measured by someone's life; not inheritable.

Defeasible Fees and Reversions

A fee simple determinable ends automatically when the limiting condition fails ("so long as," "until," "during"); the grantor holds a possibility of reverter. A fee simple subject to a condition subsequent does not end automatically ("but if," "provided that"); the grantor must act to retake, holding a right of re-entry. Watch the trigger words — exams test the automatic-versus-elective distinction directly.

Life Estates

A life estate grants full use during the measuring life. Two future interests follow it:

A life estate pur autre vie is measured by the life of someone other than the holder. The life tenant may use and profit from the land but commits waste if they damage it or impair the future interest. The life tenant cannot pass the estate by will, because it ends at death.

Forms of Co-Ownership

When two or more people own one property concurrently, the form of ownership governs shares, survivorship, and what happens at death. The big three are tenancy in common, joint tenancy, and tenancy by the entirety. Community property appears in nine states and is tested as a contrast.

• Tenancy in common (TIC) — the default for unmarried co-owners. Shares may be unequal (e.g., 70/30). No survivorship: a deceased owner's share passes to heirs or by will.
• Joint tenancy — equal shares with the right of survivorship: at death, the share passes to surviving joint tenants, bypassing probate. Requires the four unities — Possession, Interest, Time, Title (mnemonic PITT).
• Tenancy by the entirety — joint tenancy reserved for married couples; adds the "unity of person." Neither spouse can convey alone, giving creditor protection in many states.

Each co-tenant holds an undivided interest, meaning every owner has the right to use the whole property, not a fenced-off piece of it. A TIC owner may freely sell, gift, or mortgage their individual share without consent of the others, and an owner who wants out can force a sale through a partition action. Joint tenants share the same undivided-use rule, but their shares must be equal and arise from the same deed at the same moment — destroy any unity and survivorship dies with it.

Worked Example: Shares and Survivorship

Three investors buy a building as joint tenants, each contributing one-third. Investor A sells her interest to a buyer, B. Because a sale destroys the unities of time and title for that share, B becomes a tenant in common holding a 1/3 interest, while the remaining two (now holding 2/3 together) stay joint tenants with each other.

Now suppose one of those two joint tenants dies. By survivorship, the survivor takes the full 2/3, and B keeps 1/3. No part of the 2/3 passes to the deceased's heirs. Mapping the math:

Trap: survivorship beats a will. If a joint tenant's will leaves "my share" to a child, the survivorship right still controls and the child takes nothing. Only severance during life defeats survivorship.

Other Ownership Vehicles and Bundle of Rights

Ownership in severalty means one person (or a single legal entity) owns the entire estate alone — "severed" from others, despite the word sounding plural. Condominiums combine individual fee ownership of a unit with an undivided share of common elements; cooperatives instead give a shareholder a proprietary lease, so the co-op corporation owns the real estate. Townhouses typically convey the land beneath each unit in fee.

The bundle of rights describes what fee ownership includes — remember DEEPC: Dispose, Encumber, Enjoy, Possess, Control. Encumbrances and government powers (PETE: Police power, Eminent domain, Taxation, Escheat) limit but do not eliminate the bundle.

Easements and Other Interests

An easement is a non-possessory right to use another's land. An appurtenant easement runs with the land, benefiting a dominant tenement while burdening a servient tenement, and transfers automatically with the property. An easement in gross benefits a person or company (like a utility) with no dominant parcel.

Easements arise by express grant, by necessity (a landlocked parcel needs access), or by prescription (long, open use like adverse possession). A license, by contrast, is mere permission the owner can revoke at will, and an encroachment is an unauthorized physical intrusion such as a fence over the boundary line.