Reversion
National Real Estate Exam glossary · Property Ownership
Definition
The future interest retained by a grantor who conveys a lesser estate—such as a life estate—under which the property returns to the grantor or the grantor's heirs when that estate ends. Where the property instead passes to a named third party, the interest is a remainder, not a reversion.
Reversion in plain English
A reversion is a "boomerang" that a property owner keeps for themselves when they give someone only temporary rights to their land. For example, if you let a friend live on your property for the rest of their life (a "life estate"), you haven't given it away forever — when that friend dies, the property automatically snaps back to you or your heirs. That snap-back right you held onto the whole time is the reversion. Key contrast: if you'd instead said "when my friend dies it goes to my cousin," that cousin's future right is called a remainder, because it lands on someone else, not back on you.
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