Meaning & use
life tenant
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountablelegallaw
A person who has the legal right to use or live in a property for the rest of their life.
Grammar: Countable and usually singular in a specific case: the life tenant must keep the house in good repair.
Patterns
- a life tenant of something
- the life tenant
- become a life tenant
Under the will, she became the life tenant of the family home.
The life tenant may live there but cannot sell the property.
When the life tenant dies, the house passes to the children.
Word forms
| plural | life tenants |
|---|
Common combinations
- the life tenant of the property
- He is the life tenant of the property and pays all the bills.
- become a life tenant
- She became a life tenant after her mother's death.
- the life tenant's rights
- The life tenant's rights are limited to use, not ownership.
- remain the life tenant
- He will remain the life tenant until he dies.
Synonyms and how they differ
- tenant for life
- This is the older, more formal legal phrase for the same idea; 'life tenant' is shorter and more common in modern legal writing.
Word family
- life tenancy noun
- The legal arrangement in which someone has the right to use property for life.
- tenant noun
- A person who pays rent to use land or a building.
Commonly confused: life tenant or leaseholder?
life tenant vs leaseholder
A leaseholder has a lease for a fixed number of years; a life tenant's right lasts until death.
Practice
In legal English, what is a life tenant?
Choose one answer.
A life tenant's right lasts for life, so option 0 fits. Option 1 describes a yearly tenant; option 2 describes an owner; option 3 describes a builder.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “life tenant”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.