Fee; Fee-simple and Fee-tail. The term fee is derived from feudum, a feudal holding; but in English law it has now no reference to tenure; fee means an estate of inheritance in land. The person who has the fee is entitled not only to the annual profits, but also to the corpus of the land; he may sell or otherwise dispose of it, and he may commit acts of waste, which impair its permanent value. If he dies owner in fee, the land will go to his heirs or to the person entitled under his will (in legal phrase, the devisee). If a man holds 'to him and his heirs,' he is owner in fee-simple; he has the largest estate known to the law. But a fee-simple may be made determinable, as if land be given 'to A and his heirs, lords of the manor of Dale,' in this case, if A or any of his heirs ceases to be lord of that manor, the estate, and all interests derived from the owner of the estate, will come to an end. A fee-simple may also be made conditional, to vest only on the happening of an event. In early times, if land was given 'to A and the heirs of his body,' or 'to A, if he shall have an heir of his body,' the judges held that the fee was conditional; as soon as the condition was fulfilled (as soon, that is, as a child was born to A), the donee became owner in fee-simple, with full power to alienate the estate. In 1285 the lords and great men of the kingdom procured an act, commonly known as the statute De Donis Conditionalibus, whereby it was provided that in such cases the land should descend to the heirs of the body, according to the form of the gift. The statute therefore restricted the right of alienation, and limited the succession to a particular class of heirs. An estate given with words limiting it to heirs of the body was therefore called a fee-tail (taillé, 'cut down or limited'). The strict rules of the statute remained in force until means were devised for breaking entails. See ENTAIL. It is to be observed that, when heirs are mentioned in limiting an estate, the heirs themselves take nothing directly; thus, an estate given to A and his heirs means simply an estate of inheritance given to A. If land be granted to A and his heirs in trust for B and his heirs, the legal fee is in A the trustee, and the equitable fee in B the beneficial owner. An estate in fee may be given by will without technical words of limitation; but in a deed it is necessary to mention heirs or heirs of the body, or to use the words 'in fee-simple,' or the words 'in tail.'
In Scotland the term fee signifies the property in land granted to be held by feudal services. Fee is also used as a correlative to liferent, to signify the corpus or full ownership of land or money. In some cases the fee is vested in a person whose beneficial interest does not extend beyond his life; his 'fiduciary fee' corresponds to the 'legal fee' of English law.