life tenant


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Related to life tenant: life estate, Life tenancy

Life Tenant

One who holds a life estate. A life tenant has all rights associated with ownership of real property, except the right to sell the property, until his/her (or someone else's) death. Upon the death of the life tenant, the property reverts back to the owner, or to a third party designated by the owner. For example, in a will, a farmer may grant ownership of his farm to his children, subject to the life estate of their mother. In this situation, the mother is the life tenant and has the right to live in the farm house for the rest of her life. A life tenancy may be included in one's gross estate.

life tenant

A person entitled to the use of or the income from an asset during his or her lifetime. As an example, a person may stipulate in a will that all of his or her assets are to go to a charity but that the surviving spouse, designated as life tenant, is to have the use of the income from the deceased's estate for his or her lifetime, following which the remainder of the assets in the estate are to pass to the charity.

life tenant

One who has a life estate in a property, being the right to enjoy the property for a period of time measured by that person's life or some other designated person's life.The rest of the bundle of rights is called a reversion or remainder interest. Life tenants may sell, gift, or will their property to another, but when the defining life comes to an end, so do the rights of those other people.At that point,the remainderman may take possession of the property and enjoy it fully.

Example: Aunt Esther, who is 80 years old, sells her farm to Acme Agribusiness. She retains a life estate, measured by the life of her 40-year-old nephew, Mark. Esther dies two days later, with a will that leaves everything she owned to Texas A&M University. Mark has no rights in the property; he's just a measuring life. Texas A&M may use the farm until Mark's death, at which time it will pass to Acme Agribusiness.

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References in periodicals archive ?
Devise and Descent, Life Estates and Remainders--The rules regarding devise and descent of transfer restricted homestead do not apply to life estates because life estates end at the death of the life tenant; thus, there is no interest for the life tenant to devise or pass along.
The impact of co-ownership on Florida homestead
36) Indeed, like so many of his generation, Merryman was troubled by the decision in Brokaw precisely because of the court's failure to consider the compelling change in circumstances that the life tenant pointed to as a justification for the proposed demolition of the Brokaw mansion and its replacement with a modern apartment building.
Doctrines of waste in a landscape of waste
The set of alternative remainder interests would still control the distribution of corpus, but only to the extent that the life tenant does not exercise the power.
The Uniform Probate Code extends antilapse-type protection to poorly drafted trusts
1993) (deed by life tenant can convey only life estate, even if it purports to convey fee simple); ITT Rayonier, Inc.
Teaching property - a conceptual approach
Further, if the costs of the life tenant are becoming too burdensome, and if there are not additional estate planning benefits to depleting the surviving spouse's assets, then cooperative families may make adjustments for one another.
The new homestead trap: surviving spouses are trapped by life estates they no longer want and can no longer afford
This criticism is equally applicable to section 2-707, which provides that a remainder "to B if B survives A" goes to B's descendants if B dies before A, unless there is an express gift over to a specified person who survives the life tenant.
The Uniform Probate Code upends the law of remainders
Trust deemed created due to improper transfer to life tenant
Significant recent developments in estate planning
130) the mortality tables were also ignored for the value of a charitable remainder contingent on the life tenant's not having any issue, when the life tenant had undergone a hysterectomy and was incapable of bearing children.
Cases and rulings on the marital deduction, and miscellaneous estate and trust issues
57) Landlords served instead as life tenants who, while making formal financial provision for younger children and prospective widows, preserved their estates for their eldest sons and grandsons.
Marriage, Debt and the Estates System: English Landownership, 1650-1950
The majority of life estates will run until the life tenants die, in which case the remaindermen will succeed to the entire interest in the property.
TRANSFERS WITH A RETAINED LIFE ESTATE PART TWO: ESTATE TAX
The charity is then obligated to sell the property at its appraised fair market value within a specified period while the life tenants remain in residence pursuant to the retained life estate.
Advantages of planned giving
A similar result occurred in IRS Letter Ruling (TAM) 9207003,(110) in which a timely filed estate tax return contained a recapture agreement that had been signed by all parties, except one of the life tenants.
Significant recent developments in estate planning

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