Definition
Reverter, in property law, refers principally to the return of a possessory interest in land to a grantor or the grantor's successors upon the occurrence of a condition or the natural expiration of a limited grant. The term appears most often in the compound phrase "possibility of reverter," which is the specific future interest retained by a grantor who conveys property on a fee simple determinable. If the triggering condition occurs — or, in a fee simple determinable, when the stated purpose or limitation ceases — the property automatically reverts to the grantor without any further act required.
The term carries two related but distinguishable senses:
1. Possibility of Reverter. The future interest held by a grantor (or the grantor's heirs) following a conveyance in fee simple determinable. The grant is limited by durational language ("so long as," "while," "until"), and if the limitation is ever violated or ceases to be satisfied, the estate automatically terminates and possession returns to the grantor. No court action or re-entry is necessary; the reversion is self-executing by operation of law.
2. Reverter (standalone). The actual event or fact of land returning — the act or result of reverting — as distinguished from the possibility that it may do so. Burrill captures this usage directly: "the reverting or going back of lands to a donor, his heirs or assigns."
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "One who, or that which, reverts" and, in its legal sense, "the reversion of ownership of an estate in land to the original grantor pursuant to the occurrence of a condition set forth in the original grant."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "One who, or that which, reverts."
The ordinary meaning treats reverter as an agent noun — the person or thing that reverts. In legal usage, the term functions instead as a noun of event or condition: it names the interest that survives in the grantor and the legal consequence triggered when a limitation fails. A researcher encountering "reverter" in a deed or historical document should not read it as identifying a person but as describing the nature of the grantor's retained interest or the act of the estate returning.
Common Confusion
Possibility of Reverter vs. Right of Entry (Power of Termination). These are the two future interests a grantor may retain following a conditional conveyance, and they are frequently conflated. A possibility of reverter follows a fee simple determinable and operates automatically — no action by the grantor is needed for the estate to return. A right of entry (also called a power of termination) follows a fee simple subject to condition subsequent and requires the grantor to take affirmative action to reclaim the estate after a breach. The distinction has practical consequences: automatic termination vs. election-based termination, and different treatment under statutes of limitations and marketable title acts.
Reverter vs. Reversion. A reversion is the interest remaining in a grantor who conveys a lesser estate than the grantor holds (e.g., a life estate), and it becomes possessory automatically when the lesser estate ends by its natural terms. A possibility of reverter, by contrast, depends on a contingency that may never occur. The estates are related conceptually but belong to different analytical categories.
Why It Matters in Research
The phrase "possibility of reverter" is the research-critical form of this term. Researchers working in deed records, title abstracts, or conveyancing history must identify whether durational language in a grant created a fee simple determinable — triggering a possibility of reverter — or condition-subsequent language that created only a right of entry. The distinction affects whether title automatically returned to the grantor's successors and whether any curative deed or court action was required to clear it.
Historical sources vary in how carefully they distinguish the possibility of reverter from reversion generally. Older treatises and deed forms sometimes use "reverter" loosely to mean any return of the estate to the grantor, collapsing a distinction that modern property law treats as fundamental. Researchers reading nineteenth-century instruments should not assume that "reverter" language maps cleanly onto the modern doctrinal category.
Statutory treatment has varied significantly across jurisdictions and time. Many states enacted marketable title acts or statutes specifically limiting the duration of possibilities of reverter — often to 30 years — after which the interest is extinguished if not re-recorded or re-asserted. Researchers working with title chains in states with such statutes must verify whether a historical possibility of reverter survived to the research date or was cut off by operation of statute.
The Bouvier's entry in this corpus is not useful for this term — the excerpt retrieved concerns diplomatic letters of reversal, an entirely unrelated usage. Researchers should discount it and rely on Black's and Burrill for historical doctrinal content.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) defines reverter through the "possibility of reverter" formulation and cites Washburn's Real Property for the proposition that the interest arises when a grant is "so limited that it may possibly terminate." This framing emphasizes the contingent, speculative nature of the interest — the grantor does not hold a vested right of possession but rather a possibility dependent on future events.
Burrill's is more direct and archaic in phrasing: "the reverting or going back of lands to a donor, his heirs or assigns," drawing on Blackstone. This usage treats reverter as the event rather than the retained interest, a slight but meaningful difference in emphasis. Burrill's cross-reference to Formedon in the Reverter — the old common-law writ by which a donor of land in fee tail sought recovery when the donee's line failed — reflects a feudal context now entirely obsolete in American practice but relevant for researchers working with pre-nineteenth-century English or early American land records.
The historical dictionaries do not address the impact of marketable title legislation on the possibility of reverter, nor do they reflect the modern scholarly consensus that possibilities of reverter and rights of entry are analytically distinct future interests deserving separate treatment. These are gaps that become significant when using historical sources to interpret modern title questions.
Jurisdictional Note
Many states have enacted statutes that limit the duration of possibilities of reverter, typically requiring re-recording within a specified period (commonly 30 years) or extinguishing the interest by operation of law. Illinois, Massachusetts, and several other states have such statutes. Researchers must identify the applicable state's marketable title act or future-interest limitation statute before concluding that a historical possibility of reverter remains enforceable.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Future Interests — Reversion, Possibility of Reverter, Right of Entry (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia)