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Assignment Of Dower - Law Dictionary Search Results

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Assignment of dower

Assignment of dower, the ascertaining and setting out by metes and bounds of a widow's portion of her deceased husband's realty for her thirds or dower. As to the rights of the widow until 1926, see Williams v. Thomas, (1909) 1 Ch 713, and as to the widow's rights where dower has been assigned by metes and bounds, see (English) Settled Land Act, 1925, ss. 1(1)(3) and 19(1). Dower in respect of the real estate of persons dying after 1925 has been abolished, see s. 45 of the (English) A. E. Act, 1925. See DOWER....


Dower

Dower [fr. dos, dotis, Lat., a marriage gift; dotare dower, Fr., endow, to furnish with a marriage portion. Dotarium, M. Lat., dotaire, Prov.; douaire, Fr.; a dowry of marriage provision; douairiere, a widow in possession of her portion, a dowager], the right which a wife has in the third part of the lands and tenements of which her husband dies possessed in fee-simple, fee-tail general, or as heir in special tail, which she holds from and after his decease, in severalty by metes and bounds, for her life, whether she have issue by her husband or not, and of what age soever she may be at her husband's decease, provided she be past the age of nine years.The legal estate in dower (being an estate for life) has been abolished and converted into an equitable interest (ibid.), (English) L.P. Act, 1925, s. 1; it can only arise in respect of deaths after 1925 in case the deceased husband was a lunatic or defective on January 1st, 1925, and died without regaining testamentary capacity or before...


Limitation of actions and prosecutions

Limitation of actions and prosecutions. By various statutes, of which the first was 21 Jac. 1, c. 16, the (English) Limitation Act, 1623, and the principal succeeding ones, the Real Property Limitation Act, 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 42), the (English) Civil Procedure Act (3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 27) [see Read v. Price, (1909) 2 KB 724], and 37 & 38 Vict. c. 57, the (English) Real Property Limitation Act, 1874, certain periods are fixed within which, upon the principle Interest reipublic' ut sit finis litium, particular actions must be brought or proceedings taken.In the case of simple contract the remedy on the contract is barred, leaving the creditor free to enforce his claims by other means which may be still available, such as enforcing a lien, subsequent acknowledgment by the debtor or appropriation of payments, but not by way of set-off (9 Geo. 4, c. 14, s. 3). In regard to land, the right to it is destroyed after the statutory period and neither re-entry nor acknowledgment after the laps...


Magna Carta

Magna Carta, [Latin 'great charter'] The English charter that King John granted to the barons in 1215 and Henry III and Edward I later confirmed. It is generally regarded as one of the great common-law documents and as the foundation of constitution liberties. The other three great charters of English Liberty are the Petition of Right (3 Car. (1628)), the Habeas Corpus Act (31 Car. 2 (1679)), and the Bill of Rights (1 Will. SM. (1689)). Also spelled Magna charta, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 963.This Great Charter is based substantially upon the Saxon Common Law, which flourished in this kingdom until the Normaninvasion consolidated the system of feudality, still the great characteristic of the principles of real property. The barons assembled at St.Edmund's Bury, in Suffolk, in the later part of the year 1214, and there solemnly swore upon the high alter to withdraw their allegiance from the Crown, and openly rebel, unless King John confirmed by a formal charter the ancient li...


Quarantine, or Quarentaine

Quarantine, or Quarentaine. 1. By Magna Carta, the widow shall not be distrained to marry afresh, if she choose to live without a husband, but she shall not, however, marry against the consent of the Lord; and nothing shall be taken for assignment of her dower, but she shall remain in her husband's capital mansion-house for forty days after his death, during which time her dower shall be assigned. These forty days are called the widow's quarantine. Marriage during these forty days forfeits the dower. This right was enforced by writ of Quarantina habenda. See 1 Steph. Com.2. A quantity of land containing forty perches, Leg. Hen. I., c. 16.3. A regulation by which communication with persons, ships, or goods arriving from places infected with the plague, or other contagious disease, or liable thereto, is interdicted for a certain period. The term is derived from the Italian quaranta, forty; it being supposed, that if no infectious disease break out within forty days or six weeks, no furth...


Dower unde nihil habet, writ of

Dower unde nihil habet, writ of, the remedy for a widow to whom no dower had been assigned within the time limited by law, 3 Bl. Com. 183. Abolished by (English) C.L.P. Act, 1860, s. 26....


Feodary, or feudary

Feodary, or feudary, an officer of the Court of Wards, appointed by the master of that Court, under 32 Hen. 8, s. 26, whose business it was to be present with the escheator in every county at the finding of offices of lands, and to give evidence for the king as well concerning the value as the tenure; and his office was also to survey the land of the ward, after the office found, and to rate it. He also assigned the kings; widows their dower, and received all the rents, etc. Abolished by 12 Car. 2, c. 24....


Uses

Uses (History). A use is the intention or purpose, express or implied, upon which property is to be held. The Common Law treated the actual possessor for all purposes as the owner of the property. It was not difficult to find him out, since the possession of his estate was conferred upon him by a formal and notorious ceremony, technically called livery of seisin, which was performed openly and in the presence of the people of the locality.It soon became evident that the simple rules of the Common Law were stumbling-blocks to the complicated wants of an enterprising people.Hence ingenuity was sharpened to hit upon a device which should set at nought the rigidity of existing law and formalities.A system was found by the monastic jurists upon a model furnished by the Civil Law, which, by a nice adaptation, evaded, without overturning, the Common Law. Two methods of transferring realty began to co-exist in this country-the ancient Common Law system, and the later invention, which is denomi...


Equitable estates and interests

Equitable estates and interests, Rights relating to property of which the legal ownership is vested in another person, or in the equitable owner himself in another capacity. The rights arise whenever a person obtains a title to have the property or an estate or interest in it vested in himself, e.g., by contract or by any conveyance or assignment which does not by law transfer or vest the legal estate or ownership in the transferee, by mortgage or charge, and whenever a trust arises, either express, constructive, implied or by operation of law. In theory the legal owner alone was entitled, both in law and equity, to the property, and he alone was responsible for the obligations and incidents attaching to the property, the beneficial owner merely having a personal right inequity to force the legal owner to carry out his obligation or trust, but the rights and obligations of beneficial ownership became recognized and affected by statute. The Statute of Uses turned the beneficial right or...


Tail

Tail [fr. tailler, Fr., to prune]. An estate-tail was formerly a freehold of inheritance and is now an equitable interest which may be created after 1925 in respect of personalty as well as realty by way of trust and which (if not barred or disposed of by will after 1925) will devolve inequity on the person who would have taken realty as heir of the body or as tenant by the curtesy if the Law of Property Act, 1925, had not been passed [s. 130 (4) (ibid.)]The limitation of an estate so that it can be inherited only by the fee owner's issue or class of issue, Black's Law dictionary 7th Edn., p. 1466.An estate-tail in land now constitutes a settlement. [(English) Settled Land Act, 1925, s. 1]With this and other statutory modifications under the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, the rules relating to this form of estate are still applicable (a) in the investigation of all titles to land in existence on the 31st December, 1925; (b) in the construction of equitable interests into which th...


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