fee simple

From Old French fief simple.

fee simple (plural fees simple)

1. (law) The private ownership of property (real estate) in which the owner has the right to control, use, and transfer the property at will.
   • c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 248, column 2:

     Sir, for a Cardceue he will ſell the fee-ſimple of his ſaluation, the inheritance of it, and cut th’ intaile from all remainders, and a perpetuall ſucceſsion for it perpetually.

   • 1787, William Cowper, letter, 19 October:

     It had never occurred to me that a parson has no fee-simple in the house and glebe he occupies.

• absolute fee simple
• fee simple absolute in possession
• fee simple determinable
• fee simple subject to condition subsequent
• fee simple subject to executory interest
• fee simple subject to executory limitation