Life estates or life interests means that someone gets the use of a piece of property or some monies and investment or something along those lines for their lifetime and then after they pass away, the interest, whatever it was, goes to what is known as the remainder then.
Many issues can arise in the course of a life estate because many years, of course, are involved in the use of it and this video and paper deal with many of those types of issues. A life estate can be created by many different ways such as a will or a trust or a court order or a transfer or an intestacy. As it pertains, it lasts for a lifetime and then ceases to exist. The value of this can be a substantial sum of money. If it’s for example a house, it would be the value of the use of that property such as rent for the whole lifetime of the person or it may not be substantial enough at all depending on the circumstances.