Customary Freeholds

Customary freeholds have been converted into 'socage tenure' by the (English) Law of Property Act, 1922, s. 189, see COPYHOLD. Owing to its historical intrest the following note has been preserved unaltered from the previous edition of the Lexicon. ' Also denominated, privileged copyholds of frank tenure; they were known inancient times as estates inprivileged villenage or villein socage, and are estates held by custom, but not at the lord's will, in which they differ from copyholds; yet the will of the lord in copyhold is reduced to a mere fiction. These lands are of such singular nature that, when they are compared with mere copyholds, they may be called freeholds, and when compared with absolute freeholds, they maybe denominated copyholds. While the freehold interest or estate rests with the tenant, the freehold tenure is in the lord. (Mr. Serjeant Scriven dissents from this proposition in his workon Copyholds, vol. ii. pp. 572 et seq.) They are usually transferred by surrender into the hands of the lord and admittance of the new tenant. Their customs, incidents, and services are similar to those already noticed as relating to copyholds properly so called. See Duke of Portland v. Hill, (1866) LR 2 Eq. 765; Eardley v. Granville, (1876) 3 Ch D 826.

Mr. Cruise divides customary freeholds into two kinds: (1) those of which the freehold is in the lord, more properly called free copyholds; and (2) those of which the freehold is in the tenant, strictly called customary freeholds. The former pass by surrender and admittance; the latter require a conveyance from the grantor to the grantee, besides the admittance, or as the custom is insome manors, surrender and admittance, thelatter ceremony being necessary only to mark the change of tenancy, Cruise's Dig., tit. X., c. i. s. 9.