{"id":883,"date":"2026-03-29T18:50:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=883"},"modified":"2026-03-29T18:50:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:50:06","slug":"fee-simple-grant-to-a-and-his-heirs-and-assigns-forever-does-not-convey-any-property-rights-to-the-heirs-or-assigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2026\/03\/29\/fee-simple-grant-to-a-and-his-heirs-and-assigns-forever-does-not-convey-any-property-rights-to-the-heirs-or-assigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Fee simple grant \u201cto A and his heirs and assigns forever\u201d does not convey any property rights to the \u201cheirs\u201d or \u201cassigns\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In an elementary explanation of a doctrine familiar to almost all first year law students, the Fifth Circuit (applying Texas law) reaffirmed that the words \u201cand his heirs\u201d in a deed are \u201cwords of limitation\u201d meant to define the estate as a fee simple absolute rather than \u201cwords of purchase\u201d which would vest a future interest in the heirs. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ca5.uscourts.gov\/opinions\/unpub\/25\/25-40099.0.pdf\" class=\"mtli_attachment mtli_pdf\">Brown v. Carrington<\/a>, 2025 WL 3172647 (5th Cir. 2025). While the wording added \u201cand assigns forever,\u201d the court held that this is not sufficient to alter the rule based on the presumption against forfeitures that a conveyance does not create a future interest unless the language purporting to do so is clear and cannot be interpreted any other way. The wording here used the magic phrase \u201cand his heirs\u201d so the language that followed should be interpreted in the same vein as words of limitation, not words of purchase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an elementary explanation of a doctrine familiar to almost all first year law students, the Fifth Circuit (applying Texas law) reaffirmed that the words \u201cand his heirs\u201d in a deed are \u201cwords of limitation\u201d meant to define the estate as a fee simple absolute rather than \u201cwords of purchase\u201d which would vest a future interest in the heirs. Brown v. Carrington, 2025 WL 3172647 (5th Cir. 2025). While the wording added \u201cand assigns forever,\u201d the court held that this is not sufficient to alter the rule based on the presumption against forfeitures that a conveyance does not create a future interest unless the language purporting to do so is clear and cannot be interpreted any other way. The wording here used the magic phrase \u201cand his heirs\u201d so the language that followed should be interpreted in the same vein as words of limitation, not words of purchase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-estates-and-future-interests","category-real-estate-transactions"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}