Reversion - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition reversion

Definition :

Reversion [fr. revertor, Lat.], that portion left of an estate after a grant of a particular portion of it, short of the whole estate, has been made by the owner to another person. it is thus described by Mr. Watkins (Conv. C. 16): 'When a person has interest in lands, and grants a portion of that interest, or in other terms, a less estate than he has in himself, the possession of those lands shall, on the deter-mination of the granted interest or estate, return, or revert to the grantor. This interest is what is called the grantor's reversion, or more properly, his right of reverter, which, however, is deemed an actual estate in the land, bearing the fruits of seigniory. Thus a grant to an estate by the owner of the fee-simple: to A. for life,' leaves in the grantor the reversion in fee-simple, which will commence in possession after the determination of A.'s life-estate; and this is called the particular estate; particular, as carved or sliced out of the larger estate or reversion.'

Settled reversions of freehold or leasehold estates have been reduced to equitable interests by the Law of Property Act, 1925, but the word is also used to mean the freehold or leasehold reversion to a lease or term of years absolute in which case there is an estate in possession of the rents and profits as well as in the freehold or leasehold reversion, which together may form a legal estate subject to the term.

A future interest in land arising by operation of law whenever an estate owner grants to another a particular estate, such as a life estate or a term of years, but does not dispose of entire interest, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1320.