Purchase, Words Of

Purchase, Words of, those by which, taken abso-lutely without reference to or connection with any other words, an estate first attaches, or its considered as commencing in point of title, in the person described by them. 'It is a rule in law, known as the rule in Shelley's case, when the ancestor by any gift or conveyance takes an estate of freehold, and in the same gift or conveyance an estate is limited either mediately or immediately to his heirs in fee or in tail, that always in such cases 'the heirs' are words of limitation of the estate and not words of purchase' (1 Rep. 104 a; Van Grutten v. Foxwell, 1897, AC 658). The rule has been abolished in regard to all conveyances executed after 1925. In a limitation to an ancestor for life, then to his heir or any class of heirs or issue, the words heirs or issue are now words of purchase and not of limitation (Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 131). See HEIR, and SHELLEY'S CASE. At the same time, a grant to A. and his heirs may still be used to limit an estate in fee simple in law, but any words of limitation other than the conveyance to the grantee simply are unnecessary for that purpose. (L.P. Act, 1925, s. 60)