Base fee. A species of inheritable freehold estate which forms part of the class of estates known as conditional freeholds of inheritance. In a more special sense, a base fee was until 1926 a fee simple determinable on the failure of issue of an original donee of the estate in tail. It was limited by the failure of the heirs of the body of that donee to take, and upon that failure the persons next entitled in remainder became entitled to the remainder in tail or in fee simple, as the case might be. As where a tenant-in-tail, with remainder to a stranger, conveys the fee-simple to another in the property entailed upon him, such other takes a qualified fee by legal construction, determinable on the death of the tenant-in-tail and failure of the issue under the entail. Another example of such an estate is when a tenant-in-tail, not being himself entitled to the immediate remainder or reversion in fee, conveys without the consent of the protectors of the settlement; he then transfers a base-fee, determinable on the failure of his issue in tail (Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833 (3 & 4 Wm. 4, c. 74), s. 34).
From and after 1st January, 1926, these base fees have lost their quality of legal estates and have been reduced to equitable interests by the (English) L.P. Act, 1925, s. 1(32). Under s. 130(1) of that Act, the right to bar the entail so as to create an interest equivalent to a base fee has been preserved, an analogous interest may be created as provided by s. 130 in any property, real or personal. If the base fee and the freehold remainder or reversion becomes united in the same person the base fee will become enlarged into a fee-simple estate absolute (Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833, s. 39), and a base fee becomes a fee simple absolute if the person entitled to it has been in possession for twelve years after the original tenant-in-tail might have barred the remainders without consent of any protector of the settlement. [(English) Real Property Limitation Act, 1874, s. 6]