Au Québec, on dira fief simple comme dit Gilles, mais le reste du monde n'est pas forcémént familier avec cette expression.

It is a Common Law term and there is no true eqivalent in any French-speaking jurisdiction

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Note added at 2 days15 hrs (2012-03-11 21:29:30 GMT)
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In English law, a fee simple (or fee simple absolute) is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. It is the way that real estate is owned in common law countries, and is the highest ownership interest possible that can be had in real property. Allodial title is reserved to governments under a civil law structure. Fee simple ownership represents an ownership interest in real property; but it is limited by government powers of taxation, eminent domain, police power, and escheat, and it could also be limited further by certain encumbrances or conditions in the deed.[citation needed] How fee simple ownership interest is limited by these government powers often involves the shift from allodial title to fee simple such as when uniting with other property owners acceding to zoning restrictions and/or municipal regulation.[citation needed]

History

The word "fee" is derived from fief, meaning a feudal landholding. Feudal land tenures existed in several varieties, most of which involved the tenant having to supply some service to his overlord, such as knight-service (military service) or where the overlord was the king, Grand Serjeanty, which might require providing many different services, such as providing horses in time of war, or simply to act as the king's ceremonial butler. These fiefs thus gave rise to a complex relationship between landlord and tenant, involving duties on both sides. For example the overlord, in return for receiving his tenant's fealty or homage, took upon himself the duty to protect his tenant. On the abolition of feudal land tenure, all fiefs became "simple", that is to say no conditionality was attached to the tenancy.
[edit] Common Law

In English common law, the Crown has radical title or the allodium of all land in England, meaning that it is the ultimate "owner" of all land. However, the Crown can grant ownership in an abstract entity—called an estate in land—which is what is owned, rather than the land it represents. The fee simple estate is also called "estate in fee simple" or "fee-simple title" and sometimes simply freehold in England and Wales. From the start of the Norman period, when feudalism was introduced to England, the tenant or "holder" of a fief could not alienate it from the possession of his overlord, that is to say sell it, but instead could separate off a parcel of the land and grant it as a subordinate fief to his own sub-tenant, a process known as sub-enfeoffing or "subinfeudation". The 1290 Statute of Quia Emptores abolished subinfeudation and instead allowed the sale of fee simple estates.[1]

The concept of a "fee" has its origins in feudalism. William Blackstone defined fee simple as the estate in land that a person has when the lands are given to him and his heirs absolutely, without any end or limit put to his estate. Land held in fee simple can be conveyed to whomsoever its owner pleases; it can be mortgaged or put up as security.[2] Owners of real property in fee simple title have the privilege of interest in the property during their lifetime and typically have a say in determining who gets to own an interest in the property after their death.

Historically, estates could be limited in time, such as a life estate, which is a land ownership that terminates upon the grantee's (or another person's) death, even if the land had been granted to a third party, or a term of years (a lease for a specified term, such as in an estate for years). It also could be limited in the way that it was inherited, such as by an "entailment" which created a fee tail. Traditionally, fee tail was created by words of grant such as "to N. and the male heirs of his body", which would restrict those who could inherit the property. When all those heirs ran out the property would revert to the original grantor's heirs. Most common law countries have abolished entailment by statute.
[edit] Duration

An estate in fee simple is the "highest" obtainable estate known in law. It denotes the maximum of legally granted ownership, the greatest possible aggregate of rights, powers, privileges and immunities which a "person" may have in land. The three hallmarks of the fee simple estate are that it is alienable, devisable and descendable.