My partner and I are applying for a weatherization program, they request the usual home ownership documents(title,mortgage statement, tax bill) and also "verification of life estate as registered in the courthouse records". What is this? The people at the program I spoke to couldn't tell me(!), and the websites I went to were not very instructive. She is on title, I am not, since I was working for the Census at the time of the mortgage application, and my job was temporary. Would greatly appreciate any illumination. Thank you, Philip Bowditch

Hi, airhead, yes, I had to look that one of up to, read many, but found the definition of Wikepedia most enlightening. I hope this helps. It is not all of it, but I think the most important:

A life estate is a concept used in common law and statutory law to designate the ownership of land for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms it is an estate in real property that ends at death. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant".

Although the ownership of a life estate is of limited duration because it ends at the death of the person who is the "measuring life", the owner has the right to enjoy the benefits of ownership of the property, including income derived from rent or other uses of the property, during his or her possession. Because a life estate ceases to exist at the death of the measuring person's life, this temporary ownership agreement cannot be left to heirs (intestate)or devisees (testate), and the life estate cannot normally be inherited (but see Life Estate Pur Autre Vie, and Estate for Term of years). At death, the property involved in a life estate typically falls into the ownership of the remainderman named in the life estate agreement.

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