ANT FOIL LIFE. Tenancy for life of lands or tenements is the possession of a freehold estate or interest, the duration of which is confined to the life or lives of the tenant or some other person or iiersons.
The estate of the tenant for life is either (1) such as is created by deed or some other legal assurance, or (2) such as arises by operation of law.
(1) An estate for life may be created by lease with livery of seisin, or by any other conveyance at common law which might be employed in conveying the fee, or by a declaration of a use, or by will. 'l'ho estate so limited may be either to is person for bin own hie, or it may he given to one for the life of another, or for any number of lives mentioned in the grant. In the last case, the estate is in effect one for the life of the survivor of the persons so named. On the other hand, an estate may be granted for the joint lives of A and B, in which case it is in fact an (agate for the life of the person who dies first, When lands or tenements are conveyed by deed, without any express limitation of the quantity of estate to be taken by the grantee, he taken an estate for life only. This however is the case only when the grantor might Lawfully create such au estate ; for if he be tenant-in-tail, the conveyance, unless it he a lease within the provisions of the statute :12 lien. VIII., c. 28, will pass only an estate for the life of the grantor. Before the 1 Viet, c. 26, a devise without words of limitation conferred on the devisee a life estate sally; but now by Sec. 28 of that act, a devise, though without any words of limitation, passes the fee simple, or the whole of such other estate as time testator had power to dispose of, sinless a contrary intimation appear by the will.
Formerly, when lands were given to A for the life of B without any words of limitation, if A, or the penes) to whom he had assigned his estate, happened to die in the lifetime of B, the estate was considered as a kind of lirreditaa jacens, belonging to whoever first took poseession ; and the person who (lid so was called the general occupant. [Occv rANC r.1 A gift to two persons for their lives is an estate in joint tenancy, and for the life of the survivor, if the parties continue joint tenants; but if the jointure be severed, each has then an estate in the moiety for his own life only.
(2) The estates for life arising by operation of law are, the estate tail after possibility of issue extinct, and the estate by courtesy and the estate in dower.
The estate tail after possibility of issue extinct arises when, by the death of one of the persons from whom the inheritable issue is to pro ceed, it has become impossible that any person should exist upon whom the estate tail can descend. Thus, if the lands be given to A
and the heirs of his body by B, his wife, or to A and B and the heirs of their bodies, and B die without leaving any issue of their two bodies living, A, from being tenant-in-tail special, becomes tenant-in-tail after possibility of issue extinct ; which is in effect nothing more than a tenancy for life, with certain peculiar privileges remaining to the tenant out of his former inheritance, the principal of which is the right of committing waste.
As to the nature and incidents of tenancy by the courtesy and tenancy in dower, see COURTESY and DOWER.
Tenants for life are entitled to estovers ; that is to say, to an allow ance of necessary wood for the repair of houses and fences on the land; but no tenant for life, except teuant-in-tail after possibility of issue extinct, can cut down more timber than is necessary for such purposes, or build new houses, or open mines, without being guilty of waste, unless his estate be, as it may be, made expressly without impeach ment of waste. [WaaTE.] A tenant for life is not bound to pay off the principal of incum brancea affecting the inheritance, but he is bound to keep down the interest of all such incumbrances. He may convey or demise his tenement by the same means as a tenant in fee, provided he does not attempt to convey any estate greater than his own.
If he convey by grant, lease for years, bargain and sale, or lease and release, ho can pass no interest greater than that which he himself possesses, the conveyance for the excess is merely void, and no for feiture is incurred. But a conveyance by feoffment, or by any assur ance equivalent to a fine or recovery, if purporting to exceed the bounds of the life estate, displaces the estates in remainder and creates a wrongful fee simple. The person entitled to the next estate In re mainder or revertion becomes then immediately entitled to enter, thereby restoring all the estates which had been displaced by the tortious conveyance, except that of the tenant for life, which becomes absolutely forfeited.
As to the merger and surrender of estates for life, see MERGER and SURRENDER.
The name tenant for life is also applied to the person to whom, in settlements or wills of personal property, is given an interest for life only in the fund which is the subject of the settlement or will. (SET TLEMENT; WILL.)