The word fee is derived from fief or fiefdom, meaning a feudal landholding, and a fee farm grant is similar to a fee simple in the sense that it gives the grantee the right to hold a freehold estate, the only difference being the payment of an annual rent ("farm" being an archaic word for rent) and covenants, thus putting the parties in a landlord-tenant relationship.
These new estates (many of which were created after the 17th-century plantations)[1] were thus regularly divided into subtenures as fee farm grants.
This act also allowed any existing lessees for lives to convert their holding into a fee farm grant.
In Ireland, the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 (Section 12) does not allow the creation of any new fee farm grants, and where any such attempt is made a fee simple is automatically created instead.
Likewise in Northern Ireland, article 28 of the Property (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 prohibits the creation of new fee farm grants since 10th January 2000 without prejudice to existing fee farm grants made before that date.