FUTURE ESTATE. An estate in lands which is limited to come into possession and en joyment at seine time in the future. By the common law of England the number of such estates was strictly limited, being confined to reversions and remainders. These had the com mon characteristic of fitting exactly upon some precedent estate less than a fee simple, and could not take effect in derogation of a fee nor after an interval of time during which the fee was suspended or in abeyance. Thus a future gift to 13 one year after A's death, or to C one year from date, would, at common law, have been simply void, as not coining within the description of a remainder. See REMAINDER; REVERSION.
As a consequence of the ancient practice of conveying land to one man to the use of another, end as the result of the Statute of Uses. passed in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII. (1535). and of the Statute of Wills, five years thereafter. new classes of future estates of a more flexible character became possible. These were known as springing and shifting uses, and 'executory devises. They consisted in future limi tations, not coming under the description of re mainders and reversions, but taking effect in the future without a preceding 'particular' estate, or in derogation of a preceding estate in fee. Thus a gift of land to the use of B, to take effect on the happening of some future event, or to the use of A and his heirs, and, in the event of B's returning from abroad, to the use of B and his heirs, would vest a future estate in B, the former as a springing use (q.v.), and the latter as a shifting use (q.v.). Either of these estates, if given by last will and testament, would take effect as an executory devise (q.y.). Though these distinctions are still valid in England and many of the United States, they have in many jurisdictions been abolished by statute, while in a few States, as in New York, all future estates of real property have been put on the same footing, even the fundamental distinction between remainders and the executory limitations above described having been done away with. In gen
eral, therefore, future estates of all kinds can now be directly created by deed as well as by last will and testament.
Strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as an estate in personal property, and it was formerly the law that the ownership of such property was indivisible. This meant that if a chattel, as a jewel or a leasehold estate, was given to one for life, it became his absolutely, and no legal interest therein could be given over to any one else. But by a series of judicial decisions of the last century in England and America this narrow rule of the common law has been changed, and it is now possible to create legal future estates, or interests, in personal property as well as in real. Such interests are not deemed to be remainders, however, even where they take effect, like legal remainders of real property, upon the determination of a pre cedent interest therein, but are classified as future interests of the executory type, like springing and shifting uses, and the like.
The foregoing enumeration exhausts the list of the future estates generally recognized in our legal system. Other rights in land looking to a future enjoyment thereof may, indeed, exist, but they all fall short of being estates or interests in the land, as those terms are under stood in law. Of this character are rights of entry for condition broken, rights of forfeiture for waste or other cause, rights of escheat and eminent domain, and the right remaining in one who has conveyed away a qualified or limited fee. None of these reach the dignity of future estates, though one of them, the right of entry for breach of condition, has been rendered alien able by statute in England and a few of the United States. Of an intermediate character. also, are the respective interests of husband and wife in the estate of the other, while the relation of coverture continues. The 'inchoate' dower right of the wife and the curtesy `initiate' of the husband are not, strictly speaking, future estates, but they approach closely to that descrip tion. See ESTATE.