What is a Determinable Fee Simple

Extract from Encyclopedia of Realty Terminologies

1. In English law, for 'determinable fee estate' see determinable fee simple.
2. (US) A determinable fee estate is a claim in land that is granted to a person and his heirs, but subject to a qualification that the duration of the estate must end upon the occurrence of an event that may, or may not, happen. A fee held for as long as the property is used for a particular purpose. Land is granted as long a it is used as a school. Or, so long as the holder maintains a certain status, e.g. remains unmarried. In the latter instance, if the person dies unmarried, the fee is automatically enlarged into a fee simple. "An estate which may last forever is a fee. If it may end on the happening of a merely possible event, it is a determinable, or qualified fee [ Italics ours ] (First Universalist Society of North Adams v. Boland, 15 Mass 171, 29 NE 524, 15 LRA 231 (1892))", Reichard v. Chicago, 231 Iowa 563, 1 NW.2 d 720, 727 (1942) (Donehue v. Nilges, 364 Mo 705, 266 SW.2 d 553, 45 ALR2d 1150 (1954)).
A determinable fee estate

may be recognized from a life interest as a determinable fee estate may last forever, whereas the latter will come to an end.

It may be differentiated from conditional fee estate as the individual entitled to the subsequent estate must re-enter and take possession, whereas the 'determinable fee estate' automatically goes back to the grantor or the person designated to take the estate if the established event occurs.

In some legal systems, the conditions 'determinable fee', 'base fee' and 'qualified fee' are used synonymously for any fee that expires on the occurrence of a specified event (4 Kent's Comm 9; Lehigh Valley R.R. Co. v. Chapman, 35 NJ 177, 171 A. 2d 653, 657 (1961)). Also called an 'estate on limitation' or 'limited fee'.

See also fee simple determinable, possibility of reverter.
determinable fee simple (Eng).

An estate in land that is equivalent to a fee simple, except that it will automatically refer to an end upon the occurrence of some act or event that is specified during the time the interest is created, but is an event that is unpredictable and may never materialize, e.g. a fee simple granted 'to A until she gets married' or 'to B for so long as the land is used as a school', or as a thoroughfare (Highways Act 1980, s. 263; Hopper v Liverpool Corp 'n (1943) 88 Sol J 213). A determinable fee is limited by a contingency and is created by such words as 'for so long as', 'while', or 'until' (2 Bl Comm 155). If the terms limit or demarcate the utmost period of the estate, then those words create a determinable fee simple; but if the words are intended merely to defeat the estate before it reaches its border then the estate is a conditional fee simple. With a determinable fee simple the limiting conditions are integral to the duration of the estate, whereas with a conditional fee simple the limiting condition operates to cut short the estate before the end of its normal duration. If the event does not occur the estate may last forever; but if it does occur the estate automatically comes to an end; unlike a conditional fee simple, which must be brought to an end by the exercise of a right of re-entry by the grantor. However, if the event can not occur, or is void for uncertainty, the fee simple becomes absolute. If the estate will go back to the original grantor upon the occurrence of the contingency, then the grantor is said to retain the possibility of reverter and the estate is referred to as a 'determinable fee simple subject to a right of reverter'; as distinguished from a 'fee simple subject to a condition subsequent'.

Damien Abbott, B.Sc.,FRICS is the author of the Encyclopedia of Real Estate Terminology. Damien is an expert in providing definitions for Real Estate terms and today's term is Determinable Interest In Land. http://realestatedefined.com/blog/determinable-fee-estate/

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