What is the difference between 'fee simple' ownership and a 'life estate'?

• A. Fee simple is full ownership with all rights; life estate is ownership for life with future transfer
• B. Life estate includes perpetual ownership
• C. Fee simple requires no heirs
• D. Life estate conveys fee simple rights after death

Answer: (A)

Ownership duration and what happens to the property after the owner’s life is the key idea here. Fee simple ownership means complete, unrestricted ownership with the right to possess, use, sell, mortgage, and pass the property on to heirs or as you wish—there’s no automatic expiration tied to a person’s life. A life estate, by contrast, lasts only for the life of a specific person; the life tenant can use and enjoy the property, but there’s no full, permanent ownership, and once that person dies the property automatically goes to a remainderman or reverts back to the grantor. This distinction explains why a life estate ends with the life tenant’s death and why fee simple remains in effect indefinitely.

The other statements don’t fit because a life estate does not grant perpetual ownership, fee simple ownership does not require that there be no heirs, and a life estate does not convert automatically into fee simple rights after death—it transfers to the designated future owner or reverts as specified.