Eminent domainEminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase (Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Australia, Barbados, New Zealand, Ireland), or expropriation (Canada, South Africa and all the other countries) is the power of a state, provincial, or national government to take private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and transfer ownership of private property from one property owner to another private property owner without a valid public purpose.
Fee simpleIn English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" is real property held without limit of time (i.e., permanently) under common law, whereas the highest possible form of ownership is a "fee simple absolute," which is without limitations on the land's use (such as qualifiers or conditions that disallow certain uses of the land or subject the vested interest to termination).
Life estateIn common law and statutory law, a life estate (or life tenancy) is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death when ownership of the property may revert to the original owner, or it may pass to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant". In the combined jurisdiction of England and Wales since 1925 a freehold estate intended to be 'held' as a life interest takes effect only as an interest enjoyed in equity, specifically as an interest in possession trust.