Surrender - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition surrender

Definition :

Surrender [fr. sursum redditio], an assurance restor-ing or yielding up an estate, the operative verbs being 'surrender and yield up.' The term is usually applied to the giving up of a lease before the expiration of it: it generally means the giving up of a lesser estate to a greater; a release is the giving up of a greater to a less interest, enlarging the latter.

The effect of a surrender is to pass and merge the estate of the surrender or to, and into, that of the surrenderee.

By the combined operation of s. 3 of the Statute of Frauds, and the (English) Real Property Act, 1845, s. 3, now replaced by ss. 51 to 55 of the (English) Law of Property Act 1925, every express surrender must be in writing, and every express surrender of a more than three years' term must be by deed. As to surrenders of leases by mortgagors or mortgagees, in possession, see s. 100, (English) L.P. Act, 1925. But there may be an implied surrender or, as it is called in the Statute of Frauds, a surrender 'by act and operation of law'--that is, as defined by Phene v. Popplewell, (1862) 12 CB, NS 334, by anything which amounts to an agreement by the tenant to abandon and by the landlord to resume possession of the demised premises, e.g., by the delivery and acceptance of keys, by the entering of the parties into a new contract of tenancy, or by the landlord accepting a new tenant. See Woodfall's Landlord and Tenant.

1. The act of yielding to another's power or control 2. To giving up to right or claim, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1458.

Surrender, is one of the recognized modes of termination of tenancy, but it contemplates acceptance of possession by the landlord when the tenant surrenders it. A mere yielding up of an interest by the tenant in favour of the landlord, unless the landlord accepts possession, does not bring about termination of tenancy, Govinda v. Udhao, 1927 Mah LJ 688.