Also known as: lineal heirs · direct-line heir
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An heir who inherits property through direct descent from the decedent in the bloodline. The class is limited to children, grandchildren, and other issue in the direct line rather than siblings, aunts, or cousins.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Lily Lopez dies intestate owning a fee simple parcel. Her daughter Luna Lang asserts title as the sole surviving child. Because Luna is in the direct line of descent, she qualifies as a lineal heir and takes the entire estate under the applicable intestacy statute.
Levi Lowe receives a fee simple by will and later dies without children or grandchildren. His sister Lola Langley claims the land as his only surviving relative. Because no lineal heir exists, the estate passes instead to the collateral heir under state intestacy rules.
No. The classic words of purchase and limitation create a fee simple that passes to both lineal and collateral heirs when the holder dies without descendants.
Supporting sources
No one. The absence of lineal descendants means the estate passes to collateral heirs under intestacy statutes.
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No. Courts refuse to use oral statements or surrounding circumstances to restrict the term when the instrument employs the standard fee-simple formula without express limitation.
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…Thereafter, the word “heirs,” when used in a conveyance to a man “and his heirs,” came to include collateral as well as lineal heirs, ultimately indicating that such grantee took an estate which would pass to his heirs or the heirs of anyone to whom he aliened it. That is, “heirs” ceased to be a word of purchase and…