In property law of countries with a

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...

background, including the United States and some Canadian provinces, pur autre vie (

Law French Law French ( nrf, Louai Français, enm, Lawe Frensch) is an archaic language originally based on Old Norman and Anglo-Norman, but increasingly influenced by Parisian French and, later, English. It was used in the law courts of England, be ...

for "for another slife") is a duration of a proprietary freehold interest in the form of a variant of a

life estate In common law and statutory law, a life estate (or life tenancy) is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death when ownership of the property may ...

. While it is similar to a standard

pur sa vie (for his or her own life), it differs in that a person's life interest will last for the life of ''another person'', the cestui que vie, instead of his or her own. For example, if Bob is given use of the family house for as long as his mother lives, he has possession of the house pur autre vie. A life estate pur autre vie can be created when a contingent remainder is destroyed, in a Doctrine of Merger situation, where one person acquires the life estate of another and thereby destroys a remainder not already vested. It can also arise when a life tenant alienates his life estate to another, whereby the person to whom the estate is devised gains a life estate pur autre vie of the original life tenant.

References

{{law-stub Property law