Estate in land

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Property law
Part of the common law series
Types
Real property   Personal property
Acquisition
Gift   Adverse possession   Deed Conquest   Discovery   Accession Lost, mislaid, and abandoned property Treasure trove   Bailment   License Alienation
Estates in land
Allodial title   Fee simple   Fee tail Life estate   Defeasible estate Future interest   Concurrent estate Leasehold estate   Condominiums Real estate
Conveyancing
Bona fide purchaser   Torrens title Strata title   Estoppel by deed Quitclaim deed   Mortgage Equitable conversion Action to quiet title   Escheat
Future use control
Restraint on alienation Rule against perpetuities Rule in Shelley's Case Doctrine of worthier title
Nonpossessory interest
Easement   Profit   Usufruct Covenant   Equitable servitude
Related topics
Fixtures   Waste   Partition Practicing without a license Riparian water rights Prior-appropriation water rights Lateral and subjacent support Assignment   Nemo dat Conflict of property laws   Blackacre
Other common law areas
Contract law   Tort law Wills, trusts and estates Criminal law   Evidence
v   t   e

An estate in land is an interest in real property that is or may become possessory^{[disambiguation needed]}.

This should be distinguished from an "estate" as used in reference to an area of land, and "estate" as used to refer to property in general.

In property law, the rights and interests associated with an estate in land may be conceptually understood as a "bundle of rights" because of the potential for different parties having different interests in the same real property.

[edit]Categories of estates

Estates in land can be divided into four basic categories:

1. Freehold estates: rights of ownership
   • fee simple (fee simple absolute)—most rights, least limitations, indefeasible
   • defeasible estate—voidable ownership
   • finite estate—limited to lifetimes
     • life estate—fragmented ownership for duration of someone's life
     • fee tail—inalienable rights of inheritance for duration of family line
2. Leasehold estates: rights of possession and use but not ownership. The lessor (owner/landlord) gives this right to the lessee (tenant). There are four categories of leasehold estates:
   1. estate for years (tenancy for years)—lease of any length with specific begin and end date
   2. periodic estate (periodic tenancy)—automatically renewing lease (month to month, week to week)
   3. estate at will (tenancy at will)—leasehold for no fixed time or period. It lasts as long as both parties desire. Termination is bilateral (either party may terminate at any time) or by operation of law.
   4. tenancy at sufferance—created when tenant remains after lease expires and becomes a holdover tenant, converts to holdover tenancy upon landlord acceptance.
   • Types of leases:
     • gross lease
     • net lease
     • percentage lease
3. Statutory estates: created by law
   • community property
   • homestead
   • dower—interest a wife has in the property of her husband
   • curtesy—interest a husband has in the property of his wife
   • tenancy by entirety
4. Equitable estates: neither ownership nor possession
   • lien
     • general
     • specific
   • easement
     • easement in gross
     • easement appurtenant
       • ingress
       • egress

Categories: 

Fee (feudal tenure)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Fief)

This article is incomplete. Please help to improve the article, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (February 2009)

For other uses see Fee (disambiguation)

English Feudalism
Harold Sacramentum Fecit Willelmo Duci (Harold makes an oath to Duke William) King Harold becomes the vassal of Duke William of Normandy (Bayeux Tapestry)
Fief
Overlord, Vassal
Enfeoffment
Subinfeudation
Feoffee
Feudal land tenure
Fealty, Homage
Feudalism in England
Feudalism
v   t   e

A fee (Latin: feudum; French: Seigneurie) was the central element of feudalism and consisted of heritable property or rights granted by an overlord to a vassal who held it in fealty (or "in fee") in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service, usually given by the personal ceremonies of homage and fealty. The fees were often lands or revenue-producing real property held in feudal tenure: these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. A list of several hundred such fees held in chiefbetween 1198 and 1292, along with their holders' names and form of tenure, was published in three volumes between 1920 and 1931 and is known as The Book of Fees; it was developed from the 1302 Testa de Nevill. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including governmental office, rights of exploitation such as hunting or fishing, monopolies in trade, and tax farms. The privilege of minting official coins developed into the concept of seigniorage.

In the 10th and 11th centuries the term "fee" could be used either to describe dependent tenure held by a man from his lord, as the term is used now by historians, or it could mean simply "property". It lacked a precise meaning until the middle of the 12th century, when it received formal definition from land lawyers. The manor was, in effect, a small fief.

Historically the fees of the 11th and the 12th century derived from two separate sources. The first was land carved out of the estates of the upper nobility. The second source was allodial land transformed into dependent tenures. During the 10th century in northern France and the 11th century in France south of the Loire, local magnates either recruited or forced the owners of allodial holdings into dependent relationships and they were turned into fiefs. The process occurred later in Germany, and was still going on in the 13th century.

In 13th-century England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy the term "feodum" was used to describe a dependent tenure held from a lord by a vassal in return for a specified amount of knight service and occasional financial payments (feudal incidents).

However, knight service in war was far less common than:

• castle-guard (the obligation of a vassal to serve in a castle garrison of the lord),
• suit in court (the vassal's obligation to attend the lord's court, to give him counsel, and to help him judge disputes)
• attendance in the lord's entourage (accompanying the lord when he travelled or attended the court of his lord so as to increase the social status of the lord),
• hospitality to the lord or to his servants (accommodation).

Sigismund fees the Margraviate of Brandenburg to Frederik, April 30, 1415

A lord in late 12th-century England and France could also claim the right of:

• wardship and marriage - right to control descent of fee by choosing husband for female heir and guardian of minors (preferably in consultation with heir's closest male adult kinsmen);
• "aids" - payments to aid the lord in times of need (customarily given to the lord to cover the cost of knighting of eldest son, marriage of eldest daughter, and for ransoming of lord if required);
• escheat - the reversion of the fief to the lord in default of an heir.^[1]

Originally, vassalage did not imply the giving or receiving of landholdings (which were granted only as a reward for loyalty), but by the eighth century the giving of a landholding was becoming standard. The granting of a landholding to a vassal did not relinquish the lord's property rights, but only the use of the lands and their income; the granting lord retained ultimate ownership of the fee and could, technically, recover the lands in case of disloyalty or death.^[2]

By the middle of the 10th century, fee had largely become hereditary.^[3] The eldest son of a deceased vassal would inherit, but first he had to do homage and fealty to the lord and pay a "relief" for the land (a monetary recognition of the lord's continuing proprietary rights over the property). Henry II transformed them into important sources of royal income and patronage. The discontent of barons with royal claims to arbitrarily assessed "reliefs" and other feudal payments under Henry's sonKing John resulted in Magna Carta of 1215.

Eventually, great feudal lords sought also to seize governmental and legal authority (the collection of taxes, the right of high justice, etc.) in their lands, and some passed these rights to their own vassals.^[3]

In northern France in the 12th and 13th centuries military service for fiefs was limited for offensive campaigns to 40 days for a knight. By the 12th century English and French kings and barons began to commute military service for cash payments (scutages), with which they could purchase the service of mercenaries.^[1]

[edit]See also

Appanage, part of the liege's domain granted to a junior relative Book of Fees, a scholarly collection of fiefs Enfeoffment Fee simple Fee tail Fengjian, the Chinese system often compared to European feudalism Feoffee Herrschaft, the German equivalent

Knight-service Knight's fee Lord of the manor Seigneurial system of New France, a semifeudal system in France's American colonies Subinfeudation Urbarium, a medieval record of fees

[edit]References

Wikisource has the text of the1911 Encyclopædia Britannicaarticle Fief.

• Norman F. Cantor. The Civilization of the Middle Ages. New York: HarperPerennial, 1993. ISBN 0-06-092553-1

[edit]Notes

1. ^ ^a b Abels, Richard. "Feudalism". United States Naval Academy.
2. ^ Cantor (1993), pp. 198-199.
3. ^ ^a b Cantor (1993), p. 200.

Categories: 

• Feudalism

Property and Ownership

See also land.

abstraction

the taking of another’s property for one’s own use.

amortization, amortizement

the transfer or sale of property in mortmain.

burgage

British, Obsolete, a form of land tenure under which land was held in return for payment of a fixed sum of money in rent or for rendering of service. Also called socage.

devisal

the act of devising or bequeathing real property (as contrasted with personal property). Cf. devise.

devise

1. the bequeathing of real property by will.
2. the clause in a will devising real property.

disseizin, disseisin

the process of wrongfully or unlawfully dispossessing a person of his rightful real property; deprivation of seizin.

dotation

that which is endowed; an endowment.

enfeoffment

1. the act of investing with an estate held in fee.
2. the deed that enfeoffs.
3. the possession of a fief or estate held in fee.

entailment

1. the process of limiting an inheritance to a specific sequence of heirs, usually applied to large estates.
2. the estate entailed.

escheatment

reversion of ownership of property, especially real property, to the crown in the absence of persons legally qualified to inherit. Also called escheat. — escheatable, adj.

expropriation

the process of taking over property, especially real property, of another by any process, lawful or not.

feoff

fief.

feoffment

the granting of land to be held in fief.

feud

fief.

fief

Feudal System, heritable land in return for service as a vassal. The right to hold. Also called feoff, feud.

foreclosure

the process by which mortgaged property enters into the possession of the mortgagee without right of redemption by the mortgagor, usually for reason of delinquency in mortgage payments.

freehold

1. ownership of property with the right to pass it on through inheritance.
2. the property held in this way. Cf. leasehold. — freeholder, n.

gavelkind

British. Obsolete. 1. the equal division of the land of an intestate deceased among his sons.
2. a tenant’s right to dispose of his land by feoffment at age fifteen.
3. land not escheating in the event the tenant was convicted as a felon.

heirship

the state or condition of an heir; the right to inherit property; heirdom.

impoundage, impoundment

the process of taking into legal custody, especially property. — impounder, n.

infeudation

Feudalism. 1. the process of granting an estate in fee; enfeoffment.
2. the granting of tithes to laymen.

leasehold

1. the holding of property by lease.
2. the property held in this way. Cf. freehold.

lessee

a person or entity to whom a lease is given; a person or entity that leases property as a tenant.

lessor

a person or entity that grants a lease to another; a person or entity that leases property as a landlord.

mortgage

1. the giving of property, usually real property, as security to a creditor for payment of a debt.
2. the deed pledging the security.

mortgagee

the person to whom property is mortgaged; the creditor in a mortgage transaction.

mortgagor

a person who mortgages property or gives the property as security; the borrower in a mortgage transaction.

mortmain

transfer or ownership of real property in perpetuity, as transfer to or ownership by a corporate body like a school, college, or church.

nonage

formerly, a ninth part of a parishioner’s movable property, which was claimed upon his death by the clergy in England. See also law.

ownership

1. the state or quality of being an owner.
2. the state of owning.
3. right of possession or proprietorship.

parcenary

coheirship, or the joint and undivided holding of inherited land by two or more coheirs.

parcener

a coheir or joint heir; a person who holds property jointly by inheritance.

peculium

Roman Law. property that might be held by a son, wife, or slave.

revaluation

the assigning of a new, usually higher value, as to money, real estate, etc.

seizin, seisin

1. possession of a freehold estate.
2. the estate so possessed.

serjeanty, sergeanty

(in medieval England) a form of land tenure in which a tenant holding land from the king owed services only to him.

severalty

the ownership or holding of property by separate and individual right. See also separation.

socage

burgage

socager, socman

a tenant by socage.

squatterism

1. the state or practice of being a squatter, or one who settles on government land, thereby establishing ownership.
2. the state or practice of settling in vacant or abandoned property, either for shelter or in an attempt to establish ownership. — squatter, n.

superfeudation, superinfeudation

creation of a feudal estate out of or upon another feudal estate.

usucaption

Roman Law. right to or ownership of property on the basis of possession of it for a prescribed period of time. — usucapient, n.

usufruct

the right to enjoy benefits or profits from something, as real property, while not being the owner of it. — usufructuary, n., ad].

vassalage

1. the condition of land tenure of a vassal.
2. the fief or lands held.

villeinage

the type of tenure under which a villein held his land. Also called villanage.

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