Legal Definitions - entail

To entailproperty means to legally restrict its inheritance, ensuring it can only be passed down through a specific, predetermined line of descendants. This legal mechanism prevents the current owner from freely selling, mortgaging, or giving away the property outside of the designated line of succession. Historically, entailing property was a common way to preserve family wealth, land, and social status across many generations.

• Example 1: Preserving an Ancestral Estate

  Imagine a wealthy family matriarch who owns a historic country estate. To ensure this estate remains within her direct bloodline for centuries, she might legally entail the property. This means she sets up the inheritance so that the estate can only pass to her eldest child, then to that child's eldest child, and so forth. Under this arrangement, no future owner in that line could sell the estate to an outside buyer or divide it among multiple heirs; it must continue to be inherited by the designated descendant.

• Example 2: Maintaining Family Farmland

  Consider a farmer who owns a large tract of agricultural land that has been in his family for generations. He wants to prevent any future descendant from selling the land for commercial development. He could entail the farm, specifying in his will or a legal deed that the land must always be inherited by a direct descendant who commits to continuing its use as farmland. This legal restriction would prevent any future heir from selling the property to a developer, thereby preserving its agricultural purpose within the family.

• Example 3: Protecting a Charitable Endowment

  A philanthropic individual establishes a large trust to fund a specific charitable cause, such as environmental conservation, and includes a significant piece of land as part of the endowment. To ensure this land is never sold or developed, thus always serving its intended purpose, the trust document might entail the property. This would legally bind the trustees and future administrators to pass the land down only to entities or individuals committed to its conservation, preventing its sale or misuse for other purposes.