Land Patent Vs. Fee Simple
Real estate deeds often fall into two categories, land patent and fee simple. While there are other means for acquiring land, these two types are the most common ways private citizens acquire land.
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Land Patent
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Land patents refer to land transferred from the federal government to individual citizens. Patents came from public lands acquired through Native American displacement, abandoned lands and other means. Acts such as the Preemption Act of 1841 and the Homestead Act of 1862, among others, made legal original land patents.
Fee Simple
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Fee simple is the outright ownership of purchased land. As with patented land, fee simple estates can also be inherited or passed on to heirs. Fee simple land is distinguished from patented land in that it is not derived as a result of a transfer of government land.
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Searching Land Patents
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Land patent records are important documents for historians and genealogists. Searching land patents often involves a visit to a local archives or the county courthouse to perform a deed record search. However, the United States Bureau of Land Management has many of the original land patents issued from 1820 to 1908 available online for researchers.
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