Also known as: lineal heirs · direct-line heir
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
An heir who inherits property through direct descent from the decedent in the bloodline. The class is limited to children, grandchildren, and other issue in the direct line rather than siblings, aunts, or cousins.
Lily Lopez dies intestate owning a fee simple parcel. Her daughter Luna Lang asserts title as the sole surviving child. Because Luna is in the direct line of descent, she qualifies as a lineal heir and takes the entire estate under the applicable intestacy statute.
Levi Lowe receives a fee simple by will and later dies without children or grandchildren. His sister Lola Langley claims the land as his only surviving relative. Because no lineal heir exists, the estate passes instead to the collateral heir under state intestacy rules.
Mrs. Jessie Lide died on February 15, 1973, leaving a holographic will which, in its entirety, reads as follows. The will appointed her niece Sandra White Perry as executrix, stated that Evelyn White was to have the home to live in and that it was not to be sold, and left all personal property to Sandra White Perry. Mrs. Lide was a widow with no children. Although she had nine brothers and sisters, only two sisters residing in Ohio survived her. These sisters quitclaimed any interest they might have in the residence to Mrs. White. The nieces and nephews of the testatrix served as defendants in the action. For approximately twenty-five years, Evelyn White, her husband who was the testatrix’s brother, and their daughter Sandra lived with Mrs. Lide as a family. After Sandra married in 1969 and Evelyn’s husband died in 1971, Evelyn White continued to reside with Mrs. Lide until the latter’s death in 1973 at age 88. Evelyn White, joined by her daughter as executrix, filed suit seeking construction of the will and alleging fee simple title to the home. The defendants contended that only a life estate passed to Mrs. White. The Chancellor held that the will conveyed only a life interest, refused to consider extrinsic evidence concerning Mrs. Lide’s relationship with her surviving relatives, and ordered the property sold with proceeds distributed among the beneficiaries. The Court of Appeals affirmed that decision.
View caseNo. The classic words of purchase and limitation create a fee simple that passes to both lineal and collateral heirs when the holder dies without descendants.
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No one. The absence of lineal descendants means the estate passes to collateral heirs under intestacy statutes.
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No. Courts refuse to use oral statements or surrounding circumstances to restrict the term when the instrument employs the standard fee-simple formula without express limitation.
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…Thereafter, the word “heirs,” when used in a conveyance to a man “and his heirs,” came to include collateral as well as lineal heirs, ultimately indicating that such grantee took an estate which would pass to his heirs or the heirs of anyone to whom he aliened it. That is, “heirs” ceased to be a word of purchase and…