Conditional Fee
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
A fee which, at the common law, was restrained to some particular heirs, exclusive of others. It was called a conditional fee by reason of the condition, expressed or implied in the donation of it, that, if _ the donee died without such particular heirs, the land should revert to the donor. For this was a condition annexed by law to all grants whatsoever, that, on failure of the heirs specified in the grant, the grant should be at an end, and the land return to its ancient proprietor.
2 Bl. Comm. 110.