Law Dictionary of Legal Terminology

LIFE-RENT

LIFE-RENT, Scotch law. A right to use and enjoy a thing during life, the substance of it being preserved. A life-rent cannot, therefore, be constituted upon things which perish in the use; and though it may upon subjects which gradually wear out by time, as household furniture, &c., yet it is generally applied to heritable subjects. Life-rents are divided into conventional and legal.

2. - 1. The conventional are either simple or by reservation. A simple life- rent, or by a separate constitution, is that which is granted by the proprietor in favor of another. A life-rent by reservation is that which a proprietor reserves to himself, in the same writing by which he conveys the fee to another.

3. - 2. Life-rents, by law, are the terce and the courtesy. See Terce; Courtesy.