in fee
1
9.9
- idiom
- Formal
:
en propiedad plena
- In the United States, if one owns property in fee simple absolute, it means one owns the land from the surface of the soil down to the center of the planet.
- held in fee simple
- land in fee
Examples
-
Eventually, land titles or deeds were issued as patents in fee to individual allotees; the land then became taxable, and eventually the Indian landowner was given the legal responsibilities of full ownership.
Academic text (2005) -
Land held in fee simple absolute can be sold in several ways
Academic text (1993) -
Each house is owned in fee simple, just like a traditional house in just about any town anywhere in America.
Blog text (13) -
But according to the offer, they would receive subsurface rights to only 9,750 km of the land, the rest being held in fee simple, making it subject to taxation, government expropriation, and rights of access by the general public.
Academic text (1992) -
Jennings said the white Indians felt insecure and favored abolition of the Indian Bureau because they hoped to receive titles in fee simple.
Academic text (1991) -
But acquisition in fee simple (outright ownership) or conservation easement (committing the property never to be developed) remained the most reliable and legally foolproof way to protect open space.
Academic text (2004) -
By 1983, about 8,100 acres of natural wetlands were acquired from private owners by the Corps in fee or easement, and subsequently transferred to state and local authorities for management as natural flood storage and ecological restoration sites.
Academic text (2006) -
In sum, a spouse who has a valid homestead claim need not be a title owner to the property to have a claim protecting a beneficial interest they have in the homestead property. If the spouse is a title owner, upon the death of the other spouse, they will hold the property in fee simple.
Blog text (22) -
In the real estate industry, owning land in fee means you have complete and unrestricted rights to the property.
-
Each owner held their lot in fee, allowing them to build without any encumbrances or conditions.
Synonyms
1
9.8
Full ownership of land without time limit that you can sell or leave to anyone
Full ownership of a house or land that you can sell and leave to someone
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is compositionally related to 'in' + 'fee' — if a learner already knows 'fee' as an inheritable legal estate, they can plausibly infer 'in fee' means held as a fee/simple ownership. However, this is a specialized legal collocation (often shortened from 'in fee simple') and the idiomatic/legal usage and elided form are not fully predictable for an average B1 learner without exposure.
Etymology
In fee comes from old land rules: if you were in a fee, you were holding a piece of land that was given to you to keep and pass on. So the image of being 'inside' a landholding explains why in fee now means 'absolute ownership' of property.