Opinion ID: 2615097
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Characteristics of a Base or Determinable Fee

Text: A determinable or qualified fee has all the attributes of a fee simple, except that it is subject to be defeated by the happening of the condition which is to terminate the estate. 28 Am.Jur.2d Estates, Determinable Qualified or Base Fee, § 26, Attributes and incidents  generally: rights of holder, p. 103. We said in Johnson Irrigation Co. v. Ivory, 46 Wyo. 221, 24 P.2d 1053, 1058 (1933): We may also agree that a grantee who takes a limited or qualified fee,[ [6] ] liable to be defeated    may, while the estate continues, have the same rights and privileges as an owner in fee simple. In the Restatement of the Law of Property § 49, p. 170, it is said: The privilege of the owner of a possessory estate in fee simple defeasible to use the land [minerals in the instant case] is identical with that of an owner of a possessory estate in fee simple absolute except that the privilege is limited by a duty not to commit waste. The Restatement goes on to say: Except as modified by the terms of the limitation creating an estate in fee simple defeasible, the power and the privilege of the owner of such an estate to create an interest in the affected land are identical with those of an owner having an estate in fee simple absolute therein, but all interests so created are subject to the defeasibility which existed as to the estate of the transferor. Restatement of the Law of Property § 50, p. 173. We conclude that the Federal Land Bank, in excepting one-half of the minerals from the grant to Williams    for a period of 20 years    and as long thereafter as    minerals continue to be produced    was possessed of an estate in fee simple in the excepted minerals subject to the qualification expressed in the deed. It was during the life of the qualification that Williams conveyed the land to the Watts and Williams did not hold fee title to the minerals during the life of the contingency. That freehold interest resided in the Federal Land Bank, subject to the contingency.