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POSSIBILITY

An uncertain thing which may happen. A contingent interest in real or personal estate. Kinzie v. Winston, 14 Fed. Cas. 651; Bodenhamer v. Welch, 89 N. C. 78; Needles v. Needles, 7 Ohio St. 442, 70 Am. Dec. 85. It is either near, (or ordinary,) as where an estate is limited to one after the death of another, or remote, (or extraordinary,) as where it is limited to a man, provided he marries a certain woman, and that she shall die and he shall marry another. Bare possibility. The same as a “naked” possibility See infra.Naked possibility. A bare chance or expectation of acquiring a property or succeeding to an estate in the future, but without any present right in or to i’t which the law would recognize as an estate or interest. See Rogers v. Felton, 98 Ky. 148, 32 S. W. 406. Possibility coupled with an interest. An expectation recognized in law as an estate or interest, such as occurs in executory devises and shifting or springing uses; such a possibility may be sold or assigned. Possibility of reverter. This term denotes no estate, but only a possibility to have the estate at a future time. Of such possibilities there are several kinds, of which two are usually denoted by the term under consideration, (1) the possibility that a common law fee may return to the grantor by breach of a condition subject to which it was granted, (2) the possibility that a common law fee other than a fee simple may revert to the grantor by the natural determination of the fee. Carney v. Kain, 40 W. Va. 758, 23 S. E. 650. Possibility on a possibility. A remote possibility, as if a remainder be limited in particular to A.’s son John, or Edward, it is bad if he have no son of that name, for it is too remote a possibility that he should not only have a son, but a son of that particular name. 2 Coke, 51.

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