Springing use, a form of use in the nature of an executory interest directing property inland to vest at a future period which does not coincide with the termination of a legal estate at common law, for instance. In conveyances before 1926, upon a grant by X. To B. to the use of A. (an infant) in fee attaining twenty-one years of age, the use results to the settlor until, if ever, the period arrives and a good legal estate was conferred upon A. attaining that age by virtue of the statute. The use may be contingent as in that case, or vested, as grant to B. to the use of A. in fee upon the death of C., a stranger. If the grant defeats a previous legal estate and is not capable of being construed as a vested or contingent remainder, it may operate as a shifting use. Springing and shifting uses were resorted to in order to facilitate freedom of grant or conveyance of the legal estate inland by virtue of the Statute of Uses. Grants which would have created springing or shifting uses if they had been made inter vivos are good, apart from the Statute of Uses if made by will at Common Law as executory devises, but apart from statute (see CONTINGENT REMAIN-DERS), executory devises like springing or shifting uses are not so construed if they are capable of taking efect by vesting as a remainder before or Enquiry Officer instanti with the determination of a particular freehold estate. The Statute of Uses has been repealed by the Law of Property Act, 1925, which also converted executory as well as all other future interests in land in to equitable interests, and even before 1926, where the executory devise, shifting or springing use, or contingent remainder did not operate to create a legal estate but only an equitable interest, the rule as to failure of a preceding particular estate before the remainder could vest did not invalidate the equitable estate in remainder, see Re Freme, (1891) 3 Ch 167
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