Estate in land
An estate is the right, interest, or nature of interest, a person has in real property.
The "bundle of rights", privileges, benefits, & amenities associated with ownership include the rights to possess, occupy, use, exclude others from, sell, lease, mortgage, give away, or abandon the property
Categories of estates
Estates in land can be divided into four basic categories:
- Freehold Estates - rights of ownership
- fee simple (fee simple absolute) - most rights, least limitations, indefeasable
- fee tail - no inheritance
- conditional, defeasable, or determinable fee - voidable ownership
- life estate - ownership for duration of someone's life
- Leasehold Estates - rights of possession & use but not ownership. the lessor (owner/landlord) gives this right to the lessee (tenant). There are 4 categories of leasehold estates:
- estate for years (tenancy for years) - lease of any length with specific begin and end date
- periodic estate (periodic tenancy) - automatically renewing lease (month to month, week to week)
- estate at will - loose agreement, can be terminated at will
- tenancy at sufferance - create when tenant remains after lease expires and becomes a holdover tenant, converts to holdover tenancy upon landlord acceptance - see Forcible Entry and Detainer Statutes
- Types of Leases:
- Statutory Estates - create by law
- cummunity property
- homestead
- dower - interest a wife has in the property of her husband
- curtesy - interest a husband has in the property of his wife
- tenancy by entirety
- Equitable Estates - neither ownership nor possession