ESTATE, a term sometimes used to indicate property generally, whether personal or real. Sometimes it includes land alone. It signifies in law the interest which a person may have in property. It denotes the time during which ownership may exist, as for a year, for life or forever. At common law estates in land are di vided, as regards the quantity of interest, into two kinds, (1) freehold estates, and (2) estates less than freehold. A freehold is an estate which may last for life or longer. An estate which is circumscribed within a certain number of years, or one in which the possessor has no fixed right of enjoyment, is less than freehold, and although in fact it may last longer than the life of its first possessor, still the law regards it as a lower estate than a freehold; it is per sonal property in the eye of the law, and does not descend to heirs, although it may pass to executors or administrators.
Freehold estates are divided into estates of inheritance, which pass to heirs, and estates not of inheritance; the former are again divided into estates in fee simple and estates in fee tail. An estate in fee simple is the estate which a man has where lands are given to him and his heirs absolutely without any end or limit put to his estate, and it is the most extensive and the highest interest a man can have in land. If not aliened or devised, it passes to heirs generally. On the other hand, a fee tail is an estate which is limited to certain particular heirs or to a certain class of heirs, to the exclusion of the others; as to the heirs of one's body, which excludes collateral heirs, or to the heirs male of one's body, which excludes females.
In the United States fee tails have had only a limited existence, and are now in general abolished. They were changed into estates in fee simple in New York as early as 1782. Free hold.s not of inheritance are for life only, either for the /ife of the tenant or of some other per son or persons ; when the estate is called an estate pour autre vie. Life estates are created by operation of law, or by the act of the parties. An example of an estate created by act of the parties is where A conveys land to B for the term of his natural life, or where A conveys land to B without mentioning the duration of the term. Here under the common law B would take only a life estate; but by statute in many of the States—among them New York—a grant or devise of real estate possesses all of the interest of the grantor or testator, unless the intent to pass a less estate or interest appears by express terms or by necessary implication.
Dower and curtesy are estates created by operation of law. An estate by the curtesy is that estate to which a husband is entitled upon the death of.his wife in the land.s or tenements of which she was seized in possession in fee simple or fee tail, during their coverture, provided they have had lawful issue born alive, and possibly capable of inheriting her estate. An estate in dower is an estate which a widow has for her life in some portion of the lands of which her husband was seized at any time during cover ture, and which her issue might have inherited if she had any, and which is to take effect in possession from the death of her husband.
Estates less than freehold are divided into estates for years, at will and by sufferance. An estate for years is an interesl in lands by virtue of a contract for the possession of them for a definite and limited period of time. Such estates are ordinarily called terms. The length of time for which the estate is to endure is of no im portance in ascertaining its character, unless otherwise declared.by statute. An estate at will is where one man lets land to another to hold at his will, as well as that of the lessee. An estate of this kind is terminated by either party on notice. Out of estates at will a class of estates ha.s grown up called estates from year to year, which can be terminated only by six months' notice, expiring at the end of the year. An important element in creating this estate is the payment of rent. An estate at sufferance is the interest of a tenant who has come rightfully into pcssession 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. This estate is not of frequent occurrence, but is recognized as so far an estate that the landlord must enter before he can bring ejectment against the tenant. If the tenant has personally left the house, the landlord may break in the doors, and the modern rules seems to be that the landlord may use force to regain pos session, subject only to indictment if any injury is coinmitted against the public peace.