Remainder (law) - Identifying Remainders

Identifying Remainders

The key difference between a reversion and a remainder is that a reversion is held by the grantor of the original conveyance, whereas "remainder" is used to refer to an interest that would be a reversion, but is instead transferred to someone other than the grantor. Similarly to reversions, remainders are usually created in conjunction with a life estate, life estate pur autre vie, or fee tail estate (or a future interest that will eventually become one of these estates).

Usage Note: Although the term reversion is sometimes used to refer to the interest retained by a landlord when he grants possession to a tenant, not all real estate professionals can agree on the correctness of this usage of the term. Few people would refer to such a transferred interest as a remainder, so this type of "remainder" tends not to be a problem when discussing property rights.