Base Fee
A New Law Dictionary and Glossary · Alexander M. Burrill · 1850
A New Law Dictionary and Glossary
In English law
An estate or fee which has a qualification subjoined thereto, and which must be determined whenever the qualification annexed to it is at an end. As in the case of a grant to A. and his heirs, tenants of the inanor of Dale; in this instance whenever the heirs of A. cease to be tenants of that manor, the grant is entirely defeated. This kind of estate is a fee simple, because it is limited to the heirs general, and may by possibility endure forever, yet, as that duration depends upon the concurrence of collateral circumstances, which qualify and debase the purity of the donation, it is therefore not an absolute but a qualified, or base fee.
2 BL Com. 109, 110. 1 Steph. Com. 225.
A tenure in fee at the will of the lord. See Base estate, Base tenant. To hold in fee base, is to hold at the will of the lord. Termes de la ley.
Cowell,