Estate for life

A freehold estate, not of inheritance, but which is held by the tenant for his own life or the life or lives of one or more other persons, or for an indefinite period, which may endure for the life or lives of persons in being, and not beyond the period of a life. 1 Washb. R. P. 88; Co. Litt. 42 a; Bract lib. 4, c. 28, § 207; Hurd v. Cushing, 7 Pick. (Mass.) 109; Chal. R. P. 89. When the measure of duration is the tenant's own life, it is called simply an estate "for life;" when the measure of duration is the life of another person, it is called an estate "per (or pur) autre vie;" 2 Bla. Com. 120; Co. Litt. 41 6; 4 Kent 23, 24. Estates for life may be created by act of law or by act of the parties: in the former case they are called legal, in the latter conventional. The legal life estates are estatestail after possibility of issue extinct, estates by dower, estates by curtesy, jointures; 499; Fay v. Fay, 1 Cush. (Mass.) 95; Irwin v. Covode, 24 Pa. 102; 3 E. L. & Eq. R. 345; Miller v. Williamson, 5 Md. 219; Gourley v. Woodbury, 51 Vt. 37; Brooks' v. Brooks, 12 S. C. 422; Slemmer v. Crampton, 50 la. 302; Rountree v. Talbot; 89 111. 240; Noe v. Miller's Ex'rs, 31 N. J. Eq. 234. A life estate may be created by implication; Nicholson v. Drennan, 35 S. C. 333, 14 S. E. 719. A right given by a will to occupy, at a specified rent, certain premises as long as the devisee "may desire to occupy the same as a drug store," was held to amount to an estate for life; and to the same effect Warner v. Tanner, 38 Ohio St, 118; Jones v. Mason, 5 Rand. (Va.) 584, 10 Am. Dec. 701; as was a grant "so long as the waters of the Delaware shall run"; Foster v. Joice, 3 Wash. C. C. 498, Fed. Cas. No. 4,974; and a lease at a specified monthly rent of certain premises whilst the defendant continued to wish to live in a certain city; Thompson v. Baxter, 107 Minn. 122, 119 N. W. 797, 21 L. R. A. (N. S.) 575. A devise of the use and improvement of the testator's real estate, so long as the devisee should choose personally to occupy and improve any portion of the estate, was held to create a life estate, though terminable by the tenant ceasing to occupy; Wilmarth v. Bridges, 113 Mass. 407. The chief incidents of life estates are a right to take reasonable estovers, and freedom from injury by a sudden termination or disturbance of the estate; Smith v. Jewett, 40 N. H. 532. A tenant for life may not operate for oil or gas, or make an oil or gas lease, unless operations for oil or gas were commenced before the life estate accrued; Marshall v. Mellon, 179 Pa. 371, 30 Atl. 201, 35 L. R. A. 810, 57 Am. St. Rep. 001; nor can the owner of such an estate maintain an action of partition against the owners of the estate in remainder; Love v. Blauw, 01 Kan. 490, 59 Pac, 1059, 48 L. R. A. 257, 78 Am. St. Rep. 334. Under-tenants have the same privileges as the original tenant; and acts of the original tenant which would destroy his own claim to these privileges will not affect them; see Neel v. Neel, 19 Pa. 323. Their right, however, does not of course, as against the superior lord, extend beyond the life of. the original tenant; 2 Bla. Com. 122; 1 Rolle, Abr. 727; Co. Litt. 41 o.

A freehold estate, not of inheritance, but which is held by the tenant for lis own life or the life or lives of one or more other persons, or for an indelinite period, which may endure for the life or lives of persons in being, and not beyond the period of a life. 1 Washb. Real Prop. 88.

A freehold estate, not of inheritance, which a man has, to hold for the term of his own life, or for that of any other person, or for more lives than one. 1 Steph. Com. 239. — A freehold interest in lands, the duration of which is confined to the life or lives of some particular person or persons, or to the happening or not happening of some uncertain event. Cruise Dig. tit. iii. ch. 1, sect. 1. 1 Hilliard's Real Prop. 99. — That interest in lands which may possibly last for a life, but cannot last longer. 2 Crabb's Real Prop. 69, § 1020. When it is an estate for a man's own life, it is called absolutely an estate for life, but when it is for another's life it is called an estate pur autre vie. Id. Litt. sect. 56. See 4 Kent's Com. 23, 24.

An estate for life is a freehold interest in lands, the duration of which is confined to the life or lives of some particular person or persons, or to the happening or not happening of some uncertain event. Estates for life are divided into conventional or legal estates. The first created by the act of the parties, and the second by operation of law. 1. Life estates may be created by express words, as, if A conveys land to B, for the term of his natural life; or they may arise by construction of law, as, if A conveys land to B, without specifying the term or duration, and without words of limitation. In the last case, B cannot have an estate in fee, according to the English law, and according to the law of those parts of the United States which have adopted and not altered the common law in this particular, but he will take the largest estate which can possibly arise from the grant, and that is an estate for life. Co. Litt. 42, a. The life estate may be either for a man’s own life, or for the life of another person, and in this last’ case, it is termed an estate pur autre vie. There are some estates — for life, which may depend upon future contingencies, before the deaths of the persons to whom they are granted; for example, an estate given to a woman dum sola fuerit, or durante riduitate, or to a man and woman during coverture, or as long as the grantee shall dwell in a particular house, is determinable upon the happening of the event. In the same manner, a house usually worth one hundred dollars a year, may be granted to a person till he shall have received one thousand may rise and fall, no precise time can be fixed for the determination of the estate. On the contrary, where the time is fixed, although may extend far beyond any life, as a term for five hundred years, this does not create a life estate.-—2. The estates for life created by operation of law, are, Ist. Estates tail after possibility of issue extinct; 2d. Estate by the curtesy; 3d. Dower; 4th. Jointure. Vide Cruise, Dig. tit. 3; 4 Kent, Com. 23; 1 Brown’s Civ. Law, 191; 2 Bl Com. 103. The estate for life is somewhat similar to the usufruct (q. v.) of the civil law..