Life estates have been recognized as an interest in land at common law since the Middle Ages. Even so, how they relate to the ownership of and payment for oil and gas can result in outcomes that may not be intuitive.
According to common law and statute, there can be no gap in the perpetual ownership of land. For instance, if the owner of a piece of property dies intestate, state statute (in Ohio, R.C. 2105.06) often states to whom the land will be distributed. For this reason and others, land ownership often is divided between a “present” interest and a “future” interest. Frequently, that division takes the form of a life estate and a remainder.
Life Estates Generally
A life estate is an estate that its holder, the “life tenant,” holds only for the duration of a specified person’s (usually the life tenant’s) life. At the death of the life tenant (or, if the life estate is one “for the duration of another person’s life, upon that person’s death), the property passes automatically to one or more individuals or organizations called “remaindermen.” A life estate can be created by deed, by devise in a will, or, if a will is unclear or ambiguous, by judicial implication.
Both the life tenant and the remaindermen have real interests in the property, but they do not have rights to the property at the same time. Instead, their interests in the property are “stacked in time;” the life tenant has a current, exclusive …