Attendant Term - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition attendant-term

Definition :

Attendant term. Terms for years in real property are created for many purposes, e.g., to furnish money for the payment of debts, to secure rent charges or jointures, to raise portions for younger children, daughters, etc. Now, although the purpose for which the term was originally created has been satisfied or has failed, yet, not being surrendered, it continued to exit, the legal interest remaining in the trustees, to whom it was at its creation limited, or, if deceased, in their personal representatives; but the person entitled to the inheritance then became, according to equitable principle, entitled to the beneficial interest in such term, and the term or was held to be such person's trustee. This beneficial interest was subordinate to and merely attendant upon the higher estate possessed by the owner of the inheritance, and yet completely consolidated with it, following the inheritance in all the various modifications and changes to which it might be subjected by act of law or arrangements of the owner. The advantage of preserving these terms and assigning them to trustees (thus preventing the legal presumption of surrender), with an express declaration that they shall attend upon the inheritance, was this: If it had at any time appeared that prior to the purchase or mortgage, but posterior to the creation of the term, there had been an intermediate alienation or incumbrance of the fee in favour of another person, to which the then trustee of the term had not been a party, and of which the purchaser or mortgagee of the freehold had had no notice when he paid the purchase or mortgage money, he would be protected against it, through the medium of the term so assigned, which being the elder title would have taken the priority in point of legal effect. Hence the expression 'protecting against mesne (middle) incumbrances.'

Consult Sugden's Vendors and Purchasers, tit. 'Assignment of Terms.'

By the (English) Satisfied Terms Act, 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 112), as replaced and extended by the Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 5, and 1st Schedule, Part II., par. 1, attendant terms out of freehold land which have or may become satisfied at any date will merge in the freehold reversion and come to an end, and similar terms out of leasehold land are to merge in the leasehold reversion and cease, but where attendant terms with a leasehold reversion were satisfied on the1st January, 1926, and were also vested in the owner of the reversion, the merger is not to affect any protection which the owner of the reversion might have had if the term had remained outstanding, and these provisions apply to parts of land comprised in a term which has been satisfied in part.