This article is largely based on an article in the out-of-copyright Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, which was produced in 1911. It should be brought up to date to reflect subsequent history or scholarship (including the references, if any). When you have completed the review, replace this notice with a simple note on this article's talk page. (January 2011)
A base fee is an interest in real property that has the potential to last forever, provided a specified contingent event does not take place. For example, a grantee might be given an interest in a piece of land, "as long as the land is not used for any illegal purposes."
In law, a base fee is a freeholdestate of inheritance which is limited or qualified by the existence of certain conditions. In modern property law the commonest example of a base fee is an estate created by a tenant in tail, not in possession, who bars the entail without the consent of the protector of the settlement.[1] Any attempt to bar the entail without the consent of the Protector would only be partially successful.[citation needed] Though he bars his own issue (the rights of the future tenants in tail), he cannot bar any remainder or reversion, and the estate (i.e. the base fee) thus created is determinable on the failure of his issue in tail.[1] The base fee can be defined as rights that would last for as long as the fee tail would have lasted, but which will end when the line of descent stipulated in the fee tail ran out.
Law is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. It has been defined both as "the Science of Justice" and "the Art of Justice". Law is a system that regulates and ensures that individuals or a community adhere to the will of the state. State-enforced laws can be made by a collective legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes, by the executive through decrees and regulations, or established by judges through precedent, normally in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals can create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that may elect to accept alternative arbitration to the normal court process. The formation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people.
In common law jurisdictions, a freehold is the common ownership of real property, or land, and all immovable structures attached to such land, as opposed to a leasehold, in which the property reverts to the owner of the land after the lease period has expired. For an estate to be a freehold, it must possess two qualities: immobility and ownership of it must be of an indeterminate duration. If the time of ownership can be fixed and determined, it cannot be a freehold.
An estate, in common law, is the net worth of a person at any point in time alive or dead. It is the sum of a person's assets – legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind – less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person.
An example of this kind of estate was introduced by George Eliot into the plot of Felix Holt, the Radical (1866),[1] and also by Cyril Hare in He Should Have Died Hereafter (1957). In the latter work (also published as Untimely Death), the plot turns on the UK Limitation Act 1939 section 11, under which a base fee might be enlarged into a fee simple by the owner remaining in possession for 12 years.
Mary Anne Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–63), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of which are set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.
Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) is a social novel written by George Eliot about political disputes in a small English town at the time of the First Reform Act of 1832.
Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark was an English judge and crime writer under the pseudonym Cyril Hare.
Another example of a base fee is an estate descendible to heirs general, but terminable on an uncertain event; for example, a grant of land to A and his heirs, tenants of the manor of Dale. The estate terminates whenever the prescribed qualification ceases. An early meaning of base fee was an estate held not by free or military service, but by base service, i.e. at the will of the lord.[1][2]
1 2 3 4 One or more of the preceding sentencesincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Base Fee". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p.462.
↑ A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856
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Related Research Articles
Escheat is a common law doctrine that transfers the real property of a person who died without heirs to the Crown or state. It serves to ensure that property is not left in "limbo" without recognized ownership. It originally applied to a number of situations where a legal interest in land was destroyed by operation of law, so that the ownership of the land reverted to the immediately superior feudal lord.
In property law, a title is a bundle of rights in a piece of property in which a party may own either a legal interest or equitable interest. The rights in the bundle may be separated and held by different parties. It may also refer to a formal document, such as a deed, that serves as evidence of ownership. Conveyance of the document may be required in order to transfer ownership in the property to another person. Title is distinct from possession, a right that often accompanies ownership but is not necessarily sufficient to prove it. In many cases, both possession and title may be transferred independently of each other. For real property, land registration and recording provide public notice of ownership information.
In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. It is a way that real estate and land may be owned in common law countries, and is the highest possible ownership interest that can be held in real property. Allodial title is reserved to governments under a civil law structure. The rights of the fee simple owner are limited by government powers of taxation, compulsory purchase, police power, and escheat, and it could also be limited further by certain encumbrances or conditions in the deed, such as, for example, a condition that required the land to be used as a public park, with a reversion interest in the grantor if the condition fails; this is a fee simple conditional.
In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust established by deed or settlement which restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property and prevents the property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise alienated by the tenant-in-possession, and instead causes it to pass automatically by operation of law to an heir determined by the settlement deed. The term fee tail is from Medieval Latin feodum talliatum, which means "cut(-short) fee" and is in contrast to "fee simple" where no such restriction exists and where the possessor has an absolute title in the property which he can bequeath or otherwise dispose of as he wishes. Equivalent legal concepts exist or formerly existed in many other European countries and elsewhere.
In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of land for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death when ownership of the property may revert to the original owner, or it may pass to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant".
An estate in land is an interest in real property that is or may become possessory.
A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property.
In common law systems, land tenure is the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land. It determines who can use land, for how long, and under what conditions. Tenure may be based both on official laws and policies, and on informal customs. The French verb "tenir" means "to hold" and "tenant" is the present participle of "tenir". The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either its tenants or sub-tenants. Tenure signifies the relationship between tenant and lord, not the relationship between tenant and land. Over history, many different forms of land ownership, i.e., ways of owning land, have been established.
Seisin denotes the legal possession of a feudal fiefdom or fee, that is to say an estate in land. It was used in the form of "the son and heir of X has obtained seisin of his inheritance", and thus is effectively a term concerned with conveyancing in the feudal era. The person holding such estate is said to be "seized of it", a phrase which commonly appears in inquisitions post mortem. The monarch alone "owned" all the land of England by his allodial right and all his subjects were merely his tenants under various contracts of feudal tenure.
Quia Emptores is a statute passed in the reign of Edward I of England in 1290 that prevented tenants from alienating their lands to others by subinfeudation, instead requiring all tenants who wished to alienate their land to do so by substitution. The statute, along with its companion statute of Quo Warranto (1290), was intended to remedy land ownership disputes and consequent financial difficulties that had resulted from the decline of the traditional feudal system during the High Middle Ages.
In property law of the United Kingdom and the United States and other common law countries, a remainder is a future interest given to a person that is capable of becoming possessory upon the natural end of a prior estate created by the same instrument. Thus, the prior estate must be one that is capable of ending naturally, for example upon the expiration of a term of years or the death of a life tenant. A future interest following a fee simple absolute cannot be a remainder because of the preceding infinite duration.
The Settled Land Acts were a series of English land law enactments concerning the limits of creating a settlement, a conveyancing device used by a property owner who wants to ensure that provision of future generations of his family.
A defeasible estate is created when a grantor transfers land conditionally. Upon the happening of the event or condition stated by the grantor, the transfer may be void or at least subject to annulment. Historically, the common law has frowned on the use of defeasible estates as it interferes with the owners' enjoyment of their property and as such has made it difficult to create a valid future interest. Unless a defeasible estate is clearly intended, modern courts will construe the language against this type of estate. Three types of defeasible estates are the fee simple determinable, fee simple subject to an executory limitation or interest, and the fee simple subject to a condition subsequent.
In property law and real estate, a future interest is a legal right to property ownership that does not include the right to present possession or enjoyment of the property. Future interests are created on the formation of a defeasible estate; that is, an estate with a condition or event triggering transfer of possessory ownership. A common example is the landlord-tenant relationship. The landlord may own a house, but has no general right to enter it while it is being rented. The conditions triggering the transfer of possession, first to the tenant then back to the landlord, are usually detailed in a lease.
A common recovery was a legal proceeding in England that enabled lawyers to convert an entailed estate into absolute ownership, fee simple. This was accomplished through the use of a legal fiction devised by lawyers in the fifteenth century to prevent the enforcement of entails. It was based on the reasoning of the judges in a 1472 case usually known as Taltarum's Case.
A reversion in property law is a future interest that is retained by the grantor after the conveyance of an estate of a lesser quantum that he has. Once the lesser estate comes to an end, the property automatically reverts back to the grantor.
The Rule in Shelley's Case is a rule of law that may apply to certain future interests in real property and trusts created in common law jurisdictions. It was applied as early as 1366 in The Provost of Beverly's Case but in its present form is derived from Shelley's Case (1581), in which counsel stated the rule as follows:
…when the ancestor by any gift or conveyance takes an estate of freehold, and in the same gift or conveyance an estate is limited either mediately or immediately to his heirs in fee simple or in fee tail; that always in such cases, 'the heirs' are words of limitation of the estate, not words of purchase.
Taltarum's Case is the name given to a 15th-century English legal case heard in the Court of Common Pleas. The case was long thought to have established the operation of the common recovery, a collusive legal procedure that was, until finally abolished in 1833, an important element of English law of real property. By means of a complex legal fiction, a recovery converted a freehold or copyhold property held in fee tail, which could not be freely sold or disposed of, into an estate in fee simple, which could be disposed without restriction.
In English common law, real property, real estate, realty, or immovable property is land which is the property of some person and all structures integrated with or affixed to the land, including crops, buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, and roads, among other things. The term is historic, arising from the now-discontinued form of action, which distinguished between real property disputes and personal property disputes. Personal property was, and continues to be, all property that is not real property.
