estate

The degree, quantity, nature, and extent of interest which a person has in real and personal property. An estate in lands, tenements, and hereditaments signifies such interest as the tenant has therein. 2 Bl.Comm. 103.

The condition or circumstance in which the owner stands with regard to his property. Boyd v. Sibold, 7 Wash.2d 279, 109 P.2d 535, 539.

In this sense, "estate" is commonly used in conveyances in connection with the words "right," "title," and "interest," and is, in a great degree, synonymous with ... of them. When used in connection with probate proceedings, term encompasses totality of assets and liabilities of decedent, including all manner of property, real and personal, choate or inchoate, corporeal or incorporeal. In re Adams' Estate, 148 C.A.2d 319, 306 P.2d 623, 625.

The total property of whatever kind that is owned by a decedent prior to the distribution of that property in accordance with the terms of a will, or, when there is no will, by the laws of inheritance in the state of domicile of the decedent.

It means, ordinarily, the whole of the property owned by anyone, the Realty as well as the personalty. As used in connection with the administration of decedents' estates, term includes property of a decedent, trust or other person as such property exists from time to time during the administration, and hence may include probate assets as well as property passing by intestacy. Uniform Probate Code, No. 1-201(11).

In its broadest sense, the social, civic, or political condition or standing of a person; or a class of persons considered as grouped for social, civic, or political purposes.

Common Law Classifications

Estates may be either absolute or conditional.

@ absolute estate

@ conditional estate

An absolute estate is a full and complete estate, or an estate in lands not subject to be defeated upon any condition. In this phrase the word "absolute" is not used legally to distinguish a fee from a life-estate, but a qualified or conditional fee from a fee simple. A conditional estate is one, the existence of which depends upon the happening or not happening of some uncertain event, whereby the estate may be either originally created, or enlarged, or finally defeated.

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Estates are also classed as executed or executory.

@ executed estate

@ executory estate

Estates are also classed as executed or executory.

executed estate is an estate whereby a present interest passes to and resides in the tenant, not dependent upon any subsequent circumstance or contingency. They are more commonly called "estates in possession." 2 Bl.Comm. 162.

An estate where there is vested in the grantee a present and immediate right of present or future enjoyment. An executory estate is an estate or interest in lands, the vesting or enjoyment of which depends upon some future contingency. Such estate may be an executory devise, or an executory remainder, which is the same as a contingent remainder, because no present interest passes.

+ executed estate

Estate in property which is vested.

See estate

@ contingent estate

A contingent estate is one which depends for its effect upon an event which may or may not happen, as, where an estate is limited to a person not yet born.

@ conventional estate

Conventional estates are those freeholds not of inheritance or estates for life, which are created by the express acts of the parties, in contradistinction to those which are legal and arise from the operation of law.

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- dominant estate

@ expectant estate

An expectant estate is one which is not yet in possession, but the enjoyment of which is to begin at a future time; a present or vested contingent right of future enjoyment.

Examples are remainders and reversions.

@ future estate

A future estate is an estate which is not now vested in the grantee, but is to commence in possession at some future time. It includes remainders, reversions, and estates limited to commence in futuro without a particular estate to support them, which last are not good at common law, except in the case of chattel interests. 2 Bl.Comm. 165.

An estate limited to commence in possession at a future day, either without the intervention of a precedent estate, or on the determination by lapse of time, or otherwise, of a precedent estate created at the same time.

+ future estate

An estate or interest in which title or possession or both is deferred to a future time.

See future interests

@ particular estate

A particular estate is a limited estate which is taken out of the fee, and which precedes a remainder; as an estate for years to A., remainder to B. for life; or an estate for life to A., remainder to B. in tail. This precedent estate is called the "particular estate," and the tenant of such estate is called the "particular tenant." 2 Bl.Comm. 165.

@ sentient estate

A sentient estate, in the law of easements, is the estate upon which the easement is imposed or against which it is enjoyed; an estate subjected to a burden or servitude for the benefit of another estate.

@ settled estate

A settled estate, in English law, is one created or limited under a settlement; that is, one in which the powers of alienation, devising, and transmission according to the ordinary rules of descent are restrained by the limitations of the settlement.

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- vested estate

@ original estate

An original estate is the first of several estates, bearing to each other the relation of a particular estate and a reversion. An original estate is contrasted with a derivative estate; and a derivative estate is a particular interest carved out of another estate of larger extent.

"Estate" and "heirs" are not equivalent terms, Martin v. Hale, 167 Tenn. 438, 71 S.W.2d 211, 214; Abraham v. Abraham, 245 App.Div. 302, 280 N.Y.S. 825.

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As to homestead estate

- movable estate

- real estate

- residuary estate

- separate estate, and trust estate, see those titles.

See also augmented estate

- beneficial estate

- gross estate

- joint estate

- landed estate or property

- life estate

- net estate

- residuary estate

- vested estate

- bankruptcy estate

- equitable estate

- small estate

- qualified estate

- legal estate

- future estate.

For the names and definitions of the various kinds of estates in land, see the different titles below.

- bankruptcy estate (bankruptcy proceedings)

@ equitable estate

An interest recognized only in equity such as the beneficial interest of a beneficiary of a trust.

@ legal estate

An estate or interest in property which is recognized and enforced in law, not merely in equity.

@ qualified estate

Interests in real property which are not absolute and unconditional including fee tail, estates on condition, estates on limitation, and estates on conditional limitation. Carpender v. City of New Brunswick, 135 N.J.Eq. 397, 39 A.2d 40, 43.

@ small estate

In some jurisdiction ;here is an informal procedure for administration of small estates of decedents less structured than ordinary probate and administration. Normally, the services of an attorney are not required. Uniform Probate Code, No. 3-1201 et seq

@ estate ad remanentiam

/ssteyt aed remsnenshliy.tem/ An estate in fee-simple

@ estate at sufferance

The interest of a tenant who has come rightfully into possession of lands by permission of the owner, and continues to occupy the same after the period for which he is entitled to hold by such permission. 2 Bl.Comm. 150.

The estate arises where one comes into possession of land by lawful title, but keeps it afterwards without any title at all, and the original entry need not have been under lease or as a tenant of the dispossessing landlord

@ estate by elegit

See elegit

@ estate by entirety

See estate by the entirety

@ estate by purchase

One acquired in any other method than descent.

See also purchase

@ estate by statute-merchant

In England, an estate whereby the creditor, under the custom of London, retained the possession of all his debtor's lands until his debts were paid.

See statute (statute-merchant)

@ estate by statute staple

See staple (statute staple)

@ estate by the curtesy

See curtesy

@ estate in entirety

@ estate by the entireties

@ estate by the entirety

Called also estate by the entirety, estate in entirety, or estate by the entireties.

An estate in joint tenancy, plus the unity of the marital relation. A form of co-ownership of realty or personalty held by husband and wife in which there is unity of estate, unity of possession and unity of control of entire property, and on death of one, survivor takes estate under original conveyance. In re Gallagher's Estate, 352 Pa. 476, 43 A.2d 132, 133.

A common-law estate, based on the doctrine that husband and wife are one, and that a conveyance of real property to husband and wife creates but one estate. An estate held by husband and wife together so long as both live, and, after the death of either, by the survivor. It is an estate held by husband and wife by virtue of a title acquired by them jointly after marriage. A creature of the common law created by legal fiction based wholly on the common-law doctrine that husband and wife are one, and hence a conveyance to husband and wife created only one estate, and each was owner of the whole estate, and neither could dispose of it without the consent of the other, and on the death of one survivor was the owner in fee simple. Alexander v. Alexander, 154 Or. 317, 58 P.2d 1265, 1270, 1271.

Type of joint estate which may be held only by two persons who are married to each other at the time that the estate is created and which does not admit of partition, though, on divorce, it automatically becomes an estate in common unless the parties provide otherwise. An "estate by entireties" resembles a "joint tenancy" in that there is a right of survivorship in both, but such an estate is distinguishable from a joint tenancy in that the latter may be invested in any number of natural persons each of whom is seized of an undivided moiety of the whole, whereas a "tenancy by entirety" is vested in two persons only, who in law are regarded as only one, and each of whom becomes seized of the estate as a whole. Heffner v. White, 113 Ind.App. 296, 45 N.E.2d 342, 346.

See also community property

- entirety

- tenancy (joint tenancy)

@ estate duty

A duty formerly imposed in England (act of 1894) upon the principal value of all property which passed on death. Such duty was replaced in 1975 by a capital transfer tax

@ estate for life

See life estate

@ estate for years

A species of estate less than freehold, where a man has an interest in lands and tenements, and a possession thereof, by virtue of such interest, for some fixed and determinate period of time; as in the case where lands are leased for the term of a certain number of years, agreed upon between the lessor and the lessee. Blackstone calls this estate a "contract" for the possession of lands or tenements for some determinate period. 2 Bl.Comm. 140.

Estates for years embrace all terms limited to endure for a definite and ascertained period, however short or long the period may be; they embrace terms for a fixed number of weeks or months or for a single year, as well as for any definite number of years, however great.

Also called "tenancy for a term"

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