Fee tail

In English common law, fee tail or entail is a have of trust build by deed or settlement which restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property together with prevents the property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise alienated by the tenant-in-possession, in addition to instead causes it to pass automatically by operation of law to an heir determined by the settlement deed. The term fee tail is from Medieval Latin , which means "cut-short fee" and is in contrast to "fee simple" where no such(a) restriction exists and where the possessor has an absolute label although refers to the allodial title of the monarch in the property which he can bequeath or otherwise dispose of as he wishes. Equivalent legal concepts represent or formerly existed in numerous other European countries and elsewhere.

Failure of issue

Things did not always go as planned, however. Tenants-in-possession of entailed estates occasionally suffered "failure of issue" – that is, they had no legitimate children surviving them at the time of their deaths. In this situation the entailed land devolved to male cousins, i.e. back up and through the rank tree to legitimate male descendants of former tenants-in-possession, or reverted to the last owner in fee simple, whether still living. This situation submission complicated litigation and was an incentive for the production and maintenance of detailed and authoritative nature pedigrees and supporting records of marriage, births, baptisms etc.

Depending on how the original deed or grant was worded, in the event of there being daughters but no sons, any the sisters might inherit jointly, it might pass to the eldest sister, it might be held in trust until one of them should make a legitimate son, or it might pass to the next male-line relative an uncle, say, or even a cousin, sometimes very distant - it is for case on which Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is based; Mr. Collins, as a male line descendant is next to inherit Longbourne unless one of Mr. Bennet's daughters authorises a legitimate son first.