Equitable estates or interests, on the other hand, are those which the law does not recognise, but are taken notice of, and enforced by courts of equity.

And Courts of Chancery will compel

trustees,

1. To permit the cestui que trust to receive the profits of the land.

2. To execute such conveyances as the cestui que trust shall direct.

3. To defend the title of the land in any court of law or equity.*

* Cruise Dig., tit. xii., c. 4, s. 1.

CHAPTER VI.

TIME AND MODE OF HOLDING PROPERTY, AS REGARDS THE COMMENCEMENT, CONTINU

ANCE, AND TERMINATION OF THE OWNER'S ESTATE OR INTEREST.

Estates may be in possession, remainder, or reversion-Definitions of―The particular estate and the remainder, are part of one wholeRemainders are vested, or contingent—Definitions of Mr. Fearne quoted-Rules for creating a good remainder-Recent Statute 7 & 8 Vic., c. 76, s. 8-In future contingent remainders abolished-Those existing may be conveyed by deed of executory devises — Are always created by will-Differ from remainders in three important points-Of a reversion-Definition of— Is never created by deed, but arises by construction of law.

Ir is proposed in this chapter to consider estates with regard to the time of their enjoyment, or coming into possession, i. e.,

TIME AND MODE, &c.

101

when the actual pernancy of the profits, by the perception or receipt of the rents and other advantages arising from them, begins.

Estates, with respect to this consideration, may be either in possession or in expectancy; and of expectancies there are two sorts, one created by the act of the parties called a remainder, the other by act of law and called a reversion.

Of estates in possession there is little or nothing to be said. All the estates we have hitherto spoken of are of this kind, for in laying down general rules, we usually apply them to such estates as are then actually in the tenant's possession. An estate in possession is where the tenant is entitled to the actual pernancy or receipt and enjoyment of the profits.

But the doctrine of estates in expectancy contains some of the nicest and most abstruse learning in the English law. These will therefore require the student's minute attention.*

* Bl. Com., vol. ii., 164.

ן

An estate in remainder may be defined to be, in the language of Blackstone, an estate limited to take effect after another estate is determined.* Or, according to Mr. Watkins, it is that portion of interest which on the creation of a particular estate is limited over to another.†

Thus, if a man seised in fee-simple grant lands to A for twenty years, and after the determination of the said term, then to B and his heirs for ever; here A is tenant for years, remainder to B in fee. In the first place an estate for years is created or carved out of the fee, and given to A, and the

remainder of it is given to B.

residue and

But both of these interests are in fact only one estate, the present term of years and the remainder afterwards, when added together, being equal only to one estate in fee.‡

They are indeed different parts, but they constitute only one whole, they are carved out of one and the same inheritance; they

* 2 Bl. Com., 164; Co. Lit., 49, a.

† Principles, c. xiii., p. 158.

Co. Lit., 143.

are both created, and may both subsist together, the one in possession the other in expectancy. So if land be granted to A for twenty years, and after the determination of the said term, to B for life, and after the determination of B's estate for life, it be limited to C and his heirs for ever, this makes A tenant for years, with remainder to B for life, remainder over to C in fee. Now here the estate of inheritance undergoes a division into three portions; there is first A's estate for years carved out of it, and after that B's estate for life, and then the whole that remains is limited to C and his heirs. And here also the first estate and both the remainders for life and in fee are one estate only, being nothing but parts or portions of one entire inheritance; and if there were a hundred remainders it would still be the same thing; upon a principle grounded in mathematical truth, that all the parts are equal, and no more than equal to the whole. Hence also it is easy to collect that no remainder can be limited after the grant of an estate in feesimple, because a fee-simple is the highest

*

* 2 Bl. Com., 169; Plow., 29; Vaugh., 269.