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FEE Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

1. A freehold estate in lands, held of a superior lord, as a reward for services,and on condition of rendering some service in return for it. The trite meaning of theword “fee” is the same as that of “feud” or “fief,” and in its original sense it is taken incontradistinction to “allodium,” which latter is defined as a man’s own land, which hepossesses merely in his own right, without owing any rent or service to any superior. 2Bl. Comm. 105. See Wendell v. Craudall, 1 N. y. 491.In modern English tenures, “fee” signifies an estate of Inheritance, being the highestand most extensive interest which a man can have in a feud; and when the term isused simply, without any adjunct, or In the form “fee-simple,” It Imports an absoluteInheritance clear of any condition, limitation, or restriction to particular heirs, butdescendible to the heirs general, male or female, lineal or collateral. 2 Bl. Comm. 100.

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