ESTATE (OF'. estat, Fr. dial, from Lat. status, state, condition, from stare, Gk. lardvat, histanai, Skt. stha, to stand). The technical term of the common law for property interests in land. Land is not, in our legal system, like goods and chattels, capable of absolute ownership by a subject. The feudal system, under whose influence our law of real property was developed, vested the ultimate ownership of all land in the King, all private owners being deemed to be merely tenants, holding their lands in subordina tion to the paramount rights of the Crown. The interest of such a tenant was described as his estate in the land; that is, his status with refer• olee to it; and this estate, however complete and unqualified it might be, was always regarded as something less than absolute ownership, and as leaving a reversionary interest in the superior lord, some portion of the ownership undisposed of by him. The term estate was originally ap plied only to those interests in land technically known as freeholds, which were classified as real property; but it has in course of time been extended by analogy to include other interests, such as leaseholds, the interests of mortgagees, and certain creditors' rights in land, which are in our law classified as personal property. All of these interests have this element in common, that they exist in subordination to a paramount or underlying title, in which they may ultimately be absorbed, and which no act of the 'tenant' or temporary owner can affect. This is not true, however, of most forms of personal property, as goods, etc. These are held by the owner abso lutely, free from any superior proprietorship or lordship, and accordingly his ownership cannot be described as a tenancy or an estate. Hence the expression 'personal estate? sometimes employed by analogy with 'real estate,' is, strictly speak ing, inaccurately used as a substitute for 'per sonal property.' The primary classification of estates, follow ing the line of cleavage above indicated, is into estates of freehold and estates not of freehold. In the former are included the three great forms of freehold tenure—the fee simple, fee tail, and life estates, the two former of which are further described as estates of inheritance, and the last at an estate not of inheritance. Estates not of free hold are more commonly described simply as tenancies—as tenancies for years (leasehold es tates), tenancies at will, and tenancies at suffer ance—the term estate not being usually applied to the last two of these. Intermediate between the leasehold estate and the tenancy at will there has been developed a new form of tenure known as an estate or tenancy from year to year, which, though usually classified with the latkr, shares many of the characteristics of both. All of these
forms of estate will be described under their ap propriate titles.
The most striking fact in connection with this classifieation of estates is its definiteness and rigidity. The several varieties of estates are sharply differentiated from one another. Each class has its characteristic features or incidents which mark it off distinetly from every other elass, and every tenure or holding of land must conform to one or another of them. There are no intermediate estates, nor can the qualities of one be attached at will to another. No 011e can create a freehold which is not either a fee simple, a fee tail, or a life estate, and no one can create a fee simple which has the limited heritability of a fee tail, nor an inheritable llfv estate, nor a leasehold estate which shall descend to the heir instead of passing to the executor or administra tor of the owner upon his death. Neither is it possible to attach novel incidents to an estate, nor, usually, to deprive it of those which belong to it. Thus, in a Devise or conveyance of land to A and his heirs, a proviso that it shall be inalienable, or that the inheritance shall he con fined to male heirs, will be disregarded as incom patible with the nature of a fee simple; and, there being no intermediate estate such as the one described, i.e. an inheritable estate which is inalienable or in which the inheritance is limited to males, the devise is treated as an ordinary fee simple with the usual incidents of sueli•an estate.
Apparent exceptions to this rule are afforded by the fee-tail estate. in which inheritance is confined to the issue of the tenant and may he still further limited to his male or his female issue, etc., and by the tenancy from year to year. But these are themselves ancient forms of tenure, and not mere variations of the fee simple and the tenancy at will from which they were re spectively derived, and hare long since crystal lized into forms as definite and invariable as those of the older estates. While the incidents of these time-honored forms of landholding have sustained great changes through legislation and the process of judicial decision, no new forms or varieties of estate have come into existence for upward of two and one-half centuries, and no additions to the list seem likely to be made in the near future. The sporadic revival of the an cient qualified or limited fee will be referred to in connection with the fee simple (q.v.). For the employment of the term 'estate' in connection with equitable interests in land, see EQUITABLE ESTATE. See also REAL PROPERTY; TENURE; and the authorities there referred to.