Fee Simple Ownership
Fee simple ownership, also called fee simple absolute, is the highest and most complete ownership the law recognizes in land.
1. Fee Simple Ownership
Fee simple ownership (also known as fee simple absolute ownership) is the highest and most complete form of real property ownership.
- Words of conveyance that create fee simple ownership include “to A and her/his heirs,” and “to A.”
- Fee simple ownership [can be of perpetual duration] and is fully alienable. Ownership may be transferred by conveyance, will, or inheritance.
- [When an owner transfers real property by will, the new owners are known as “devisees.”]
- [If a fee simple owner dies without leaving a will, title to real property will transfer to any individuals named in the state’s law governing intestate succession. This process is known as “inheritance,” and the new owners are “heirs.”]
- The estate of a fee simple owner who dies intestate and without heirs will escheat to the state.
- Despite its name, fee simple ownership is not “absolute.” The law allows many limits on fee simple ownership, including zoning restrictions, taxation, and debt obligations.
- The Nevada FLE does not test specific restrictions on fee simple ownership (such as zoning regulations) except as noted in this outline.
- Nor does the Nevada FLE test knowledge of future interests that may modify the fee simple or make it defeasible.
Fee simple absolute is the highest, most complete ownership of land: it can last forever and is fully alienable. Title travels by conveyance, will (taker = devisee), or inheritance (taker = heir), and despite its name it is not free of all limits.
Fee simple ownership, also called fee simple absolute, is the highest and most complete ownership the law recognizes in land. Two features define it. First, it can last forever; there is no built-in end date the way a lease or a life estate has one. Second, it is fully alienable, meaning the owner can move the title around freely.
There are exactly three ways that title travels. By conveyance, where a living owner deeds it to someone else. By will, where the owner directs at death who takes it, and those takers are called devisees. And by inheritance, which is what happens when an owner dies without a valid will; in that situation the state's intestate-succession law names who takes, and those takers are called heirs. There is also a fallback for the rare case where an owner dies intestate and leaves no heirs at all: then the estate escheats, meaning it passes to the state.
The words that create a fee simple are simple too: a grant 'to A and her heirs' creates one, and so does a bare grant 'to A.' The phrase 'and her heirs' is just traditional language of creation; the heirs named in it get nothing during A's life.
- 1Took under a will: devisee.
- 2Took because there was no will, under intestate succession: heir.
- 3No will and no heirs at all: the estate escheats to the state.
The label depends entirely on whether there was a will; do not swap devisee and heir. And watch the name: despite being called fee simple absolute, this ownership is not free of all limits. The law permits many restrictions on it, such as zoning, taxation, and debt obligations, so an answer that calls fee simple 'absolute and free of all restrictions' is stating the opposite of the rule.
The specifics of those restrictions, and any future interests that could make the fee defeasible, are outside what this concept tests.
Three ways title moves, three labels.
Conveyance = a living grantor deeds it.
will = takers are devisees.
No will = inheritance under intestacy, takers are heirs.
No will and no heirs = escheat to the state.
The single switch is whether a will exists: will -> devisee, no will -> heir.
"Highest and most complete, but not absolute." Fee simple can last forever and is fully alienable, yet the law still allows zoning, taxes, and debts to limit it.
Any option that says 'absolute,' 'free of all restrictions,' or 'cannot be limited' is the printed-rule trap; the outline says it is not absolute.
"To A" alone makes a fee simple, just like "to A and her heirs." The heirs in that phrase take nothing while A lives.
A landowner holds her parcel in fee simple absolute. She dies. Walk the three transfer routes to see how title moves and what each taker is called.
Now suppose, before any of that, a creditor had recorded a lien against the parcel for an unpaid debt. Does that lien mean she never held a true fee simple absolute?
An option swaps the DEVISEE/HEIR labels, calling a taker under a will an 'heir' or an intestate taker a 'devisee,' or it demands magic words like 'fee simple absolute' to create the estate.
Takers by will are devisees; takers by intestate succession (no will) are heirs. Fee simple is created by 'to A and her heirs' or simply 'to A'; no special incantation is required.An option calls fee simple 'absolute and free of all restrictions,' says it 'cannot be limited,' or claims no government restriction can apply.
The outline states fee simple is NOT 'absolute'; the law allows many limits on it, including zoning restrictions, taxation, and debt obligations.An option treats 'and her heirs' as giving the heirs a present share, or treats escheat as triggered by death alone rather than by death intestate AND without heirs.
Heirs take nothing during the owner's life; the 'and her heirs' phrase is language of creation. Escheat requires both no will and no heirs.A sympathetic but legally irrelevant fact, such as long use of the land or the existence of a tax or lien, offered to change who takes or to deny the fee simple itself.
Such facts do not change the rule: an intestate-and-heirless estate escheats to the state, and ordinary limits like taxes and liens burden the fee without negating it.An option reaches the correct outcome but on a wrong rationale, e.g., 'fee simple is limitable because it is a lesser estate,' or a taker who takes 'because heirs always inherit' when the taker is actually a devisee.
Name the operative reason: fee simple is limitable because it is not 'absolute' (not because it ranks low), and the label follows the route actually taken (will/devisee vs. intestacy/heir).An option mislabels the transfer route, e.g., calling a transfer at death a 'conveyance,' or treating escheat as a transfer to a private taker.
Conveyance is an inter vivos transfer by a living owner; transfer at death without a will is inheritance. Escheat passes the estate to the STATE, not to a private party.the stem gives you a single fee simple owner who dies, transfers, or whose ownership is said to be limited, and then tests one of three things.
One, what to call the taker, which turns entirely on whether there was a will (will -> devisee; no will -> heir; no will and no heirs -> escheat to the state).
Two, whether a grant in plain words like 'to A' or 'to A and her heirs' creates a fee simple, which it does, with the heirs taking nothing during A's life.
Three, whether some restriction (a lien, a tax, zoning) defeats the fee, which it does not, because fee simple is the highest ownership but is expressly not absolute.
The moment you see 'absolute and free of all restrictions,' or a devisee/heir label that does not match the presence or absence of a will, you have found the distractor.
A homeowner held her house in fee simple absolute. Before she died, she signed a valid will that left the house to her niece. The homeowner left no debts on the property, and the niece was not related to her in any way that would have given the niece a share of the estate had there been no will. After the homeowner died, the house passed to the niece under the will.
How is the niece properly described in taking the house?
A landowner owned a parcel in fee simple absolute and died without ever making a will. He was survived by relatives who qualify to take his property under the state's law governing what happens to a decedent's real property when there is no will. Those relatives received title to the parcel through that process.
How are these relatives properly described in taking the parcel?
A homeowner holds her residence in fee simple absolute. The local government taxes the property each year, a recorded lien secures a debt she owes, and the land sits in an area subject to ordinary land-use restrictions. The homeowner argues that because she owns the home in fee simple absolute, her ownership cannot be subjected to any of these limits.
Is the homeowner's argument correct?
A grantor signed and delivered a deed that conveyed her land 'to a friend and her heirs.' At the time of the conveyance the friend was alive and had two adult children. The friend's children claimed that the deed's reference to the friend's heirs gave each of them a present ownership share in the land alongside the friend.
What estate did the deed create, and what did the children receive?
A property owner held a vacant lot in fee simple absolute. He died without leaving a will, and a careful search under the state's intestate-succession law turned up no surviving relatives who qualify to take the lot. A neighbor who had used the lot for years asserts that he should receive title because no one else is available to take it.
What happens to title to the lot?