2.1 Estates, Ownership Forms, Rights, and Interests

The Bundle of Rights

Real property ownership is best understood as a bundle of rights, not a single thing. The classic rights are easy to recall with the acronym DEEPC:

• Disposition - the right to sell, gift, or will the property
• Exclusion - the right to keep others out
• Enjoyment - the right to use without outside interference
• Possession - the right to occupy and hold
• Control - the right to use the property as desired within the law

An owner can sever and convey individual sticks from the bundle. Granting an easement gives away part of control and exclusion while keeping the rest. Leasing transfers possession and enjoyment for a term while the owner retains disposition. Exam questions often describe a transaction and ask which stick moved.

Freehold vs. Leasehold Estates

An estate is the degree, quantity, nature, and extent of a person's interest in land. The first split is by duration:

Freehold estates carry seisin (legal ownership). Leasehold estates give possession but not ownership, so a tenant holds a non-freehold estate.

Fee Simple

Fee simple absolute is the highest estate - perpetual, inheritable, no conditions. Defeasible fees can end: a fee simple determinable ends automatically ("so long as," "until") and reverts to the grantor (possibility of reverter); a fee simple subject to condition subsequent lets the grantor re-enter on breach ("but if," "provided that") via a right of re-entry.

Life Estates

A life estate lasts only for the duration of a named measuring life. The holder is the life tenant. When the measuring life ends, the property passes either to a remainderman (named third party) or back to the grantor as a reversion.

A pur autre vie life estate is measured by someone other than the holder's life - "to Ann for the life of Bob." Ann's interest ends when Bob dies, not when Ann dies.

The life tenant may use and profit from the property but commits waste if she damages it or impairs the remainderman's future interest. She cannot will the property, because her interest dies with the measuring life.

A legal life estate is created by law, not by deed - dower (wife), curtesy (husband), and homestead protections are classic examples still tested even where modernized by statute.

Concurrent Ownership - The Four Unities

When two or more persons own simultaneously, the form is determined by the four unities, recalled as PITT:

• Possession - all hold an undivided right to the whole
• Interest - equal shares
• Time - acquired at the same moment
• Title - acquired by the same document

Joint Tenancy

Requires all four unities plus an express intent to create survivorship. The hallmark is the right of survivorship: when one joint tenant dies, her share passes automatically to the survivors, outside probate and cannot be willed. Breaking any unity (e.g., one tenant sells her share) severs that interest, converting it to a tenancy in common with the new owner.

Tenancy in Common, Tenancy by the Entirety, and Severalty

Tenancy in common (TIC) requires only unity of possession. Owners may hold unequal shares, acquired at different times by different deeds, and there is no survivorship - each share passes by will or intestate descent. TIC is the default when a deed to two or more people is silent.

Worked example: A deed conveys to three siblings as tenants in common with shares of 50%, 30%, and 20%. The 30% owner dies; her 30% passes to her heirs, not to the other two siblings. The survivors keep 50% and 20%.

Tenancy by the entirety is joint tenancy reserved for married couples - it adds a fifth unity (marriage) and neither spouse can convey alone. Severalty means ownership by one person or entity alone. Despite sounding plural, it is sole ownership.

Trap: candidates pick "several owners" for severalty. It means sole ownership.

When co-owners cannot agree, any owner may file a partition action. The court will physically divide the land (partition in kind) or, more commonly, order a sale and split the proceeds by ownership share (partition by sale). Survivorship rights end at death, not by partition, so a joint tenant who wants to leave her share to a child must sever the joint tenancy first - for example, by deeding her interest to herself as a tenant in common.

Leasehold (Nonfreehold) Estates

A leasehold gives a tenant possession for a term while the landlord keeps the reversion. The four classic types are distinguished by how they begin and end:

The most-tested trap is the estate for years: because it has a built-in end date, it terminates without notice, and the tenant's death does not end it, the lease term survives and binds the estate. An estate at sufferance is the only one created without the landlord's consent, arising when a tenant simply stays past expiration.