Heirloom - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition heirloom

Definition :

Heirloom [fr. h'res, Lat., heir, and geloma, Sax., goods], personal chattels, such as charters, deeds, and evidences of title, coat armor set up in a church, or a tombstone erected there, which go to the heir, together with the inheritance. The ancient jewels of the Crown are heirlooms. Heirlooms strictly so called are now rarely met with. See Williams on personal Property; Co. Litt. 18b, 185b; 2 Bl. Com. 428.

The term 'heirlooms' is often applied in practice to the case where certain chattels--for example, pictures, plate, or furniture--are directed by will or settlement to follow the limitations thereby made of some family mansion or estate. But the word is not then employed in its strict and proper sense, nor is the disposition itself beyond a certain point effectual; for the Articles will, in such case, belong absolutely to the first person who, under the limitations of the settlement, becomes entitled to the real estate for a vested estate of inheritance; see Portman v. Viscount Portman, 1922, AC 473, and cases there referred to.

The 37th s. of the (English) Settled Land Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 38), provided that 'where personal chattels are settled on trust so as to devolve with land until a tenant in tail by purchase is born or attains the age of 21 years, or so as otherwise to vest in some person becoming entitled to an estate of freehold inheritance in the land,' a tenant for life could, by order of the Chancery Division of the High Court, sell the chattels or any of them, the proceeds of the sale to be dealt with as 'capital money' under the Act. This s. has been replaced by s. 67 of the (English) Settled Land Act, 1925, with amendments in keeping with s. 130, (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, which enables an entailed interest to be created in personal as well as real estate (see TAIL). Under these Acts the word 'heirloom' apparently means a chattel intended to devolve with land. By s. 130(1), (English) L.P. Act, 1925, entailed chattels which are heirlooms are not subject to the general powers of a tenant for life under the (English) Settled Land Act, 1925, except by an order of the Court under s 67 of the (English) S.L. Act, 1925. By s. 130(3), (English) L.P. Act, heirlooms inter alia may be entailed by reference to corresponding settlements of land whenever created. Personal chattels settled upon entail without reference to land may be sold with the consent of the usufructuary for the time being if of full age (ibid., sub-s. 5).

Heirlooms, is derived from 'loom', an anglo-saxon word meaning tool or utensil (See Oxford English Dictionary). Heirlooms were articles which either from their connection with real estate or by special custom, formerly passed, on the death of the ancestor, to the heir. They were connected in this manner with real estate when they were an incident of the tenure of land, or were necessary for maintaining the dignity of the owner of land or the possessor of a title. An ancient horn, where the tenure was by carnage, the garter and collar of a knight, the ancient jewels at the crown, and a patent creating a dignity, were all heirlooms and may still properly be so styled. Chattels may, possibly also be heirlooms on the ground that they are an essential feature in the ordinary enjoyment of the land, for example, wild deer in a park, assuming that they can be the subject of property at all, if they are so far tame as to be under control, they are personal property. By special custom, such articles as the best bed and utensils, and other household implements, might be heirlooms, but the custom had to be strictly proved. Halsbury's Law of England, 4th Edn., Vol. 39, para 390, p. 273. Armour and other relics hung in a Church in honour of an ancestor were also heirlooms, see Hill v. Hill, (1897) 1 QB 483 CA.