Title 42, Real Property.

Estates are either in possession or in expectancy.

An estate in possession exists when the owner has an immediate right to the possession of the land.

An estate in expectancy is either a reversion or a future estate.

A reversion is the residue of an estate left in the grantor who has conveyed, or in the heirs of the devisor who has devised a particular estate less than his own, and which residue returns to his or their possession on the expiration of the particular estate.

A future estate is one limited to commence at a future day, either without the intervention of a precedent estate or after the expiration or determination of a precedent estate created at the same time and by the same conveyance or devise.

If it is to commence upon the full expiration of such precedent estate, it is a remainder and may be transferred by that name. If it is to commence on a contingency which, if it happen, will abridge or determine such precedent estate before its expiration, it shall be known as a …

A future estate is vested when there is a person in being who would have an immediate right to the possession of the land upon the expiration of the intermediate or precedent estate, or upon the arrival of a certain period or event when it is to commence in possession. It is cont…

Two or more future estates may be created to take effect in the alternative, so that if the first in order shall fail to vest the next in succession may be substituted for it and take effect accordingly.

No expectant estate can be defeated or barred by any alienation or other act of the owner of the intermediate or precedent estate, nor by any destruction of such precedent estate, by disseizin, forfeiture, surrender, merger, or otherwise, except when such destruction is expressly…

Expectant estates shall be descendible, devisable, and alienable in the same manner as estates in possession.

(a) Every estate granted or devised to 2 or more persons in their own right, including estates granted or devised to spouses or domestic partners, as defined in § 32-701(3), shall be a tenancy in common, unless expressly declared to be a joint tenancy; but every estate vested in …

There shall be no estate in coparcenary in the District, and where 2 or more persons inherit from an intestate they shall be tenants in common.

An estate for a determined period of time is an estate for years.

An estate expressed to be from year to year shall be good for 1 year only.

All estates which by construction of the courts were estates from year to year at common law, as where a tenant goes into possession and pays rent without an agreement for a term, or where a tenant for years, after the expiration of his term, continues in possession and pays rent…

An estate may be from month to month or from quarter to quarter, or, as otherwise expressed, it may be by the month or by the quarter, if so expressed in writing.

An estate at will is one held by the joint will of lessor and lessee, and which may be terminated at any time, as herein elsewhere provided, by either party; and such estate shall not exist or be created except by express contract; provided, however, that in case of a sale of rea…

All the provisions of this chapter and of §§ 42-302 to 42-304 [repealed], 42-703, and 42-704 shall apply to personal property generally except where from the nature of the property they are inapplicable.