Lives - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition lives

Definition :

Lives, Estate for. A lease to A. during the life of another or the lives of others was a tenure of very long standing in England, chiefly in the west and north, or where the lease was granted by a corporation, and in Ireland. Now such a lease is either a lease for 90 years determinable by notice after any event determining the term under the original demise as provided by the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 149, if the lease is at a rent or in consideration of a fine, or is a converted copyhold lease for life without right of perpetual renewal under Part V of the (English) L.P.Act, 1922. In all other cases it is an equitable interest and governed by the Settled Land Act,1925. The tenant under the lease was called a tenant pur autre [or auter] vie, and the person during whose life the lease is to last, the cestui que vie. By 18 & 19 Car. 2, there is a prima facie presumption of death after seven years; and by the Cestui que Vie Act,1707 (6 Anne, c. 72), an order may be made by the Chancery Division for the production of the cestui que vie on an application by the person interested: see Re Isaacs, (1838) 1 My. & C. 1; Re St. John's Hospital, (1868) 18 LT 12. The lease for lives, which was abolished on the Duchy of Cornwall estates by the (English) Duchy of Cornwall Management Act, 1863, has now greatly and properly fallen into desuetude, though it has by no means disappeared. It was at one time very common in Inns of Court leases. See Woodfall's Law of Landlord and Tenant 'Seton on Judgments.

The (English) Cestui que Vie act applies generally to all cases where an estaeis held during the livesof others, as well as to a lease for lives. See Mew's Digest, vol. vi., tit. 'Estate pr Autre Vie,' at p. 322. See AUTRE VIE.