Definition
Pur autre vie (Law French: "for another's life") describes an estate or interest in property that lasts only for the duration of a third party's life — not the life of the holder and not a fixed term, but the life of some other designated person. The holder of such an estate (called the *cestui que vie* holder, or life tenant pur autre vie) may possess and use the property during that measuring life, but the estate terminates automatically when the designated person dies, regardless of whether the holder is still living.
The most common context is a life estate granted by deed or will where the grantor specifies that a grantee holds property "for the life of X." If the grantee dies before X, the estate does not pass to the grantee's heirs as a fee simple would — instead, at common law it descended to whoever first took possession (an *occupant*), until statutes later directed it to pass through the grantee's estate. If X dies first, the estate ends regardless of what the grantee's deed says.
Common Confusion
Pur autre vie is frequently confused with an ordinary life estate, which measures duration by the holder's own life. The distinction is critical: in a standard life estate, the holder's death terminates the interest automatically; in an estate pur autre vie, the holder's death does not end the estate — the measuring life (the *autre vie*) continues to govern. A researcher who conflates the two may misread conveyances, wills, and deed records, particularly in historical materials where the measuring life is named only obliquely or by initials.
Why It Matters in Research
Pur autre vie arises most often in three research contexts: historical land records, trust and estate documents, and life-tenancy litigation.
In historical deed and conveyance research, the phrase appears in early American and English instruments with little explanation, because trained conveyancers of the period treated it as routine. Researchers consulting colonial or nineteenth-century deed books should watch for the phrase in granting clauses and habendum clauses, where its presence fundamentally changes the duration and inheritability of the interest conveyed.
The question of what happens when the life tenant pur autre vie dies before the measuring life — leaving behind an estate that is neither expired nor freely alienable as fee simple — generated significant common law doctrine and later statutory correction. Many American states passed statutes directing that a pur autre vie estate passes through the holder's estate rather than to a common law occupant. The applicable statute varies by jurisdiction and period, so research into intestacy or devise of such an interest must account for the law in force at the holder's death, not just at the original conveyance.
In trust and estate practice, pur autre vie arrangements appear in sophisticated estate plans where a settlor or testator wants property to benefit one person during the lifetime of another — for example, a surviving spouse's right to occupy property measured by the life of an adult child with disabilities. Researchers should flag that modern instruments often achieve the same functional result through trust language without using the Latin phrase, making cross-referencing between older and newer documents non-obvious.
The corpus of cases discussing pur autre vie is concentrated in English and early American decisions. Researchers using nineteenth-century digests should check under both "life estate" and "pur autre vie" as indexing was inconsistent.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Burrill's agree precisely on the core definition: an estate lasting for the life of a person other than the grantee. Burrill's citation to Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Com. 120, 183) points researchers to Blackstone's treatment of freehold estates, which remains the most accessible single-source explanation of the common law framework governing such interests, including the occupancy doctrine for estates where the holder dies before the measuring life expires.
Black's phrasing — "endures only for the life of some particular person other than the grantee" — accurately captures the essential element but omits the occupancy problem and its statutory resolution, which were live issues at the time both dictionaries were compiled. Neither dictionary addresses the trust context or modern statutory equivalents, which is predictable given their period but is a gap researchers should note.
Both sources treat this as a single, stable concept, and rightly so — the term has not materially shifted in meaning, though its practical significance has declined as fee simple absolute and trust arrangements have displaced many life estate conveyances in modern drafting.
Jurisdictional Note
American states generally follow the common law definition but have varied in how they handle the estate when the life tenant pur autre vie dies before the measuring life. Most jurisdictions have enacted statutes directing such an interest to pass through the holder's estate by will or intestacy rather than to an occupant. Researchers should identify the controlling statute in the relevant jurisdiction and the law in force at the relevant date.