ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, we examined one way in which two or more people could share in the ownership of land. This was the law of concurrent co-ownership, being where all of the co-owners were entitled to the enjoyment of land simultaneously. Typical examples were spouses, civil partners or unmarried couples. 1 However, there is another method by which two or more people can have ‘ownership’ rights over land at the same time, albeit that only one of them is entitled to the immediate physical possession of the property. This is the law relating to successive co-ownership of land, being where one person has an interest in the land for life and another person, or persons, have rights that ‘fall into’ possession after the ‘life interest’ has ended. 2 For example, it was once quite common for property to be left by will 3 to one person for their life, then to another, then to another, and so on, as where Blackacre is left to A for life, with remainder to B for life, remainder to C in fee simple. In such a case: A has a life interest in possession (and is known, somewhat confusingly, as the ‘life tenant’); B has a life interest in remainder (and will be the life tenant when A dies); and C has a fee simple in remainder (and will become the absolute owner on the death of A and B). As is made apparent by this example, the person who established the successive interests 4 was able to control the destination of the land for a considerable period 5 and often the reason for creating successive interests was ‘to keep land in the family’ by limiting its ownership to successive generations (e.g. ‘my son’, ‘my grandson’, etc.), although it could also be used for business or commercial arrangements. Importantly, even though only one of the co-owners was entitled to the possession of the land (the life tenant), all of the other persons interested in ‘the settlement’ also had property interests that could be dealt with in the normal way. That is why it is a form of co-ownership.
