{"id":4608,"date":"2020-06-04T14:22:42","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T21:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/?p=4608"},"modified":"2020-06-05T11:42:58","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T18:42:58","slug":"what-does-life-estate-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/?p=4608","title":{"rendered":"What Does Life Estate Mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

I was asked by a \u201cfriend\u201d about her step mother staying in her dad\u2019s home after dad died. He had written a trust and in it he granted her a \u201clife estate.\u201d According to the terms of the trust, she was \u201centitled to remain and reside within our residence at 1122Boogie Woogie Avenue, without any restriction and with exclusive right to possession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also located on the property was dad\u2019s old workshop, a place where the stepmother really had no interest but my friend and her sister would like to have access.<\/p>\n

Curious, I pondered, what does \u201clife estate\u201d mean. Here is what I learned.<\/p>\n

“A life estate is an estate whose duration is limited to the life of the person holding it or of some other person.\u201d (Estate of Nichols (1962) 199 Cal.App.2d 783, 795.) Even though it seems like it is limited, there owner of the life estate, step mom in thiscase, has tremendous power of what to do with the property while she is alive. \u201cThe owner of a life estate may use the land in the same manner as the owner of a fee simple, except that he must do no act to the injury of the inheritance.\u201d (Civ. Code, \u00a7 818.)<\/p>\n

Fee simple means the absolute–and exclusive–rights to possess, use, enjoy and dispose of the entire fee interest in the property without limitation or condition. (Munkdale v. Giannini (1995) 35 Cal.App.4th 1104, 1111.) So, the life estate has thesame unqualified state, \u201cin the absence of some special provision, a declared life estate is unqualified as to use and occupancy and is exclusive as to possession.\u201d (Horstmann v. Sheldon (1962) 202 Cal.App.2d 184, 190.)<\/p>\n

Returning to my friend\u2019s dilemma, since dad\u2019s wife has a life estate, she has theexclusive right to possession. This means she gets to control who comes on the property at any time. Unfortunately, my friend can be prevented from going on to the property to her dad\u2019s old workshop. Dad could have put a qualification on the life estate, which could have allowed my friend and her sister to have certain access. It\u2019s too bad he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

– David Rosenbaum, Esq.<\/p>\n

To download this article, please click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was asked by a \u201cfriend\u201d about her step mother staying in her dad\u2019s home after dad died. He had written a trust and in it he granted her a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,8,7,56],"tags":[71,72,167,28,35,70,135,95,69,116,51,151],"class_list":["post-4608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-civil-litigation","category-estate-planning","category-wealth-preservation","tag-bay-area","tag-bay-area-event","tag-civil-litigation","tag-estate-planning","tag-family-estate-plan","tag-law","tag-law-firm","tag-laws","tag-legal","tag-planning","tag-san-mateo","tag-san-mateo-county"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/painting_resources_tools.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcdlawyers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}