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The Ratliff Law Firm - Reliable, Trustworthy, Effective Legal Services for Southwest Virginia and Southern West Virginia.

Car accidents, personal injury, elder law, will, trusts, estates, business law, divorce, custody & visitation, litigation, traffic, Social Security Disability and general practice.

Virginia: (276) 522-1220

West Virginia: (304) 716-4167

Bradley C. Ratliff, Esq., Jeffrey W. Stowers, Jr., Esq., Kristen N. Lawson, Esq.

Reliable.  Trustworthy.  Effective.  Legal Representation.

What is a Life Estate in property?

That term is intriguing, isn't it? When folks purchase real estate, in most cases, when a person buys real property, they buy that property in "fee simple absolute." Fee simple absolute, simply means that they bought the whole. However, property can be divided up into numerous elements (called estates) and owned by numerous separate individuals. This, of course, gets way more complicated than this post, so I will stick to the "life estate" part.

In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of land for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms it is an estate in real property that ends at death when ownership of the property may revert to the original owner, or it may pass to another person. This occurs when someone deeds property to another person or persons, and either 1.) reserves a life estate for themselves, or 2.) deeds a life estate to someone else.

The Life Estate holder is the present possessory holder. What?!!! Yeah....sorry. Legalese! It means that the person who has a life estate can hold the property to the exclusion of the world - even from the other deeded owner or owners. The reason for this is that the others who have their names on the deed are considered "future interest" holders. That means that their interest in the property does not become valid until the life estate holder dies.