1. Hist. The reversion of land ownership back to the lord when the immediate tenant dies without heirs. See WRIT OF ESCHEAT.
2. Reversion of property (esp. real property) to the state upon the death of an owner who has neither a will nor any legal heirs. [Cases: Escheat 1–8. C.J.S. Escheat §§ 2–23.]
3. Property that has so reverted. See heirless estate under ESTATE(3). — escheat, vb.
“All escheats, under the English law, are declared to be strictly feudal, and to import the extinction of tenure…. The rule [was] that if lands were held in trust and the cestui que trust without heirs, the lands did not escheat to the crown, but the trustee, being in esse and in the legal seisin of the land, took the land discharged of the trust, and bound as owner for the feudal services. But as the feudal tenures do not exist in this country, there are no private persons who succeed to the inheritance by escheat; and the state steps in the place of the feudal lord, by virtue of its sovereignty, as the original and ultimate proprietor of all the lands within its jurisdiction.” 4 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law *423–24 (George Comstock ed., 11th ed. 1866).
