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Charter - Law Dictionary Search Results

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Municipal corporation

Municipal corporation. A body of persons in a town having the powers of acting as one person, of holding and transmitting property, and of regulating the government of the town. Such corporations existed in the chief towns of England (as of other countries) from very early times, deriving their authority from 'incorporating' charters granted by the Crown.The Municipal Corporations Act,1835 (5 & 6 Wm. 4, c. 76), passed after local inquiries by Royal Commissioners, completely reorganized the constitution of these corporations, and abrogated all charters so far, but so far only, as inconsistent with it. This Act applied to 178 corporations named in the schedules thereto, and to 68 other corporations subsequently receiving a charter, a town to which it applied being styled a 'borough.'The (English) Act of 1835 was amended by a series of statutes passed from time to time, and consolidated by the (English) Municipal Corporations Act,1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 50), which, in turn (except for Lond...


Mortmain

Mortmain [fr. mort, Fr., dead, and main hand], such a state of possession of land as makes it inalienable; whence it is said to be in dead hand--in a hand that cannot shift away the property. It takes place upon alienation to any corporation, sole or aggregate, ecclesiastical or temporal, 2 Bl. Com. 268.By several old statutes, alienation of lands and tenements in mortmain, i.e., to religious and other corporations, which were supposed to hold them in a dead or unserviceable hand, were prohibited under pain of forfeiture to the lord, the fruits of whose feudal seigniory (the great hinge of government in those days) were thus impaired. But either with or without the consent of the immediate lords (for this is doubtful), this forfeiture might be dispensed with by a licence in mortmain from the Crown, which licence was made sufficient without any such consent by 7 & 8 Wm. 3, c. 37, repealed and reenacted by the consolidating mortmain and (English) Charitable Uses Act, 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. ...


Joint-stock Banks

Joint-stock Banks, joint-stock companies for the purpose of banking. They are regulated, according to the date of their incorporation, by charter, or by 7 Geo. 4, c. 46; 7 & 8 Vict. cc. 32 and 113; 9 & 10 Vict. c. 45 (in Scotland and Ireland); 20 & 21 Vict. cc. 49 & 91; and 27 & 28 Vict. c. 32; or by the Companies Act, 1929, in substitution for previous Acts, which makes registration under it compulsory in the case of a partnership consisting of more than ten persons. It is believed that the liability of the shareholders in chartered banks is in most if not in all cases limited to some amount fixed by the charter, generally twice the amount of their shares. Under the (English) Companies Act, the liability may be either limited or unlimited, and most banks registered under the old Companies Act of 1862 were unlimited until 1880, when many took advantage of the (English) Companies Act, 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. c. 76), to register anew as limited; see now Companies Act, 1929, ss. 321, 322, 359...


Instrument

Instrument [instrumentum, Lat., fr. instruo, to prepare or provide], a formal legal writing-e.g., a record, charter, deed or transfer, or agreement. By s. 205(1)(viii.) of the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, 'Instrument' (for the purposes of the Act) 'does not include a Statute, unless the Statute cre-ates a Settlement.' See also Settled Land Act, 1925,s. 117; see also TRUST INSTRUMENT; VESTING INSTRUMENT. A telegram and an envelope with a falsified postmark have been held to be 'instruments' within the meaning of the Forgery Act, 1861, s. 38, now replaced by s. 7, (English) Forgery Act, 1913 [R. v. Riley, (1896) 1 QB 309; R. v. House, 28 TLR 186]; also an engine.Includes every document by which any right or liability is, or purports to be, created, transferred, modified, limited, extended, suspended, extinguished or recorded. [Notaries Act, 1952 (53 of 1952), s. 2 (b)]Includes every document by which any right or liability is, or purports to be created, transferred, limited, exte...


House of Commons

House of Commons, one of the constituent parts of Parliament, being the assembly of knights of shires, or the representatives of counties; citizens, or the representatives of cities; and burgesses, or the representatives of boroughs.The lowest chamber of British and Canadian Parlia-ment, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 744.Property Qualification.--The property qualification of members, which was by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 48, amending 9 Anne, c. 5, by allowing personal property to count fixed at 600l. a year for a county, and 300l. a year for a borough member, was abolished in 1858 by 21 & 22 Vict. c. 26.Payment of Members.--Members were from very early times entitled to payment at the rate of 4s. a day for county, and 2s. a day for borough members, payable by their constituents. This has never been abolished, and is recognized by the unrepeated 6 Hen. 8, c. 16, by which members may not depart from Parliament without licence from the Speaker on pain of losing their 'wages,' though 35 Hen. ...


Bank

Bank, Commercially it is a place where money is deposited for the purpose of being lent out at interest, returned by exchange, disposed of to profit, or to be drawn out again as the owner shall call for it. Special provisions are contained in the (English) Companies Act, 1929 relating to Banks. By s. 358, no company, association or partnership consisting of more than ten members shall be formed for the purpose of carrying on a banking business unless it is registered under the Act or formed in pursuance of an Act of Parliament or of letters patent. By s. 360, the liability of the members of a banking limited company remains unlimited in respect of the bank's liability for bank-notes issued by it. As to signature of balance sheets, see s. 129 and ANNUAL RETURNS, ss. 108 and 361. See also JOINT STOCK BANKS and LIMITED LABILITY, and consult Grant, Paget, or Walker on Banking, Chitty's Statutes, tit. 'Bank.'Means financial institution engaged in the accepting of deposits of money, granting...


demise

demise de·mised de·mis·ing : to convey (possession of property) by will or lease [the demised premises] n [Anglo-French, from feminine past participle of demettre to convey by lease, from Old French, to put down, give up, renounce, from Latin demittere to let fall and dimittere to release] 1 : the conveyance of property by will or lease : lease 2 : the transmission of property by testate or intestate succession 3 : charter of a boat in which the owner surrenders completely the possession, command, and navigation of the boat called also bareboat charter ...


Magna Carta

Magna Carta or Mag·na Char·ta [mag-nə-kÄ r-tə] n [Medieval Latin, literally, great charter] : a charter of liberties signed under duress by King John of England in 1215 that influenced the development of several modern legal and constitutional principles (as due process) ...


Magna Carta

The great Charter so called obtained by the English barons from King John A D 1215 This name is also given to the charter granted to the people of England in the ninth year of Henry III and confirmed by Edward I...


Recharter

A second charter a renewal of a charter...



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