Contingency Fee - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: contingency fee Page: 2Remainder
Remainder [fr. remanentia, Lat.], that expectant portion, remnant, or residue of interest which, on the creation of a particular estate, is at the same time limited over to another, who is to enjoy it after the determination of such particular estate.After 1925 remainders can operate only as equitable interests, and in that manner they can be created in respect of personality as well as realty. The follow-ing explanation of legal remainders has been retained as relating to titles to land existing before 1926, and see (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 4, as to the construction of equitable interests.A remainder may be limited in all freehold estates, but not strictly and technically in chattels real and personal, although these may be limited over after a previous limitation or a partial interest in them. It may be limited by way of use (which is, in practice, the usual method), as well as by a conveyance deriving its effect from the Common Law.In the same land there may at the sa...
Shelley's case, Rule in
Shelley's case, Rule in. intimately connected with the quantity of estate which a tenant may hold in realty, is the antique feudal doctrine generally known as the rule in Shelley's Case, which is reported by Lord Coke in 1 Rep. 93 b (23 Eliz.in C.B.), and elaborately examined by Lord Macnaghten in Van Grutten v. Foxwell, 1897 AC 658.The rule has been abolished by the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 131, in the construction of all instruments coming into operation after 1925; but the rule governs the construction of all instruments which have come into operation before the 1st January, 1926.The rule may be described thus: Where a life free-hold, either legal or equitable in realty (whether of freehold or copyhold tenure), is limited by any assurance to a person, and by the same assurance the inheritance of the same quality, i.e., either legal or equitable, is limited by way of remainder (with or without the interposition of any other estate) to his heirs or the heirs of his body...
Settled land
Settled land. For the purposes of the (English) Settled Land Acts, 1882-1890, 'settled land' meant land, and any estate and interest therein, which was the subject of a settlement; and 'settlement' meant any instrument, or any number of instruments, under which any land, or any estate or interest in land, 'stands for the time being limited to or in trust for any persons by way of succession' (Settled Land Act, 1882, s. 2) (see infra for the statutory definitions in the Settled Land Act, 1925, which has repealed the S.L. Acts, 1882-1890). Where the settlement consists of more instruments than one it is commonly called a 'compound settlement,' though this term is not defined in the Acts themselves; as to compound settlements, see Re Du Cane & Nettlefold, (1898) 2 Ch 96; Re Munday & Roper, (1899) 1Ch 275; Re Lord Wimborne & Browne (1904) 1 Ch 537; Wolstenholme & Cherry, Conveyancing, etc., Acts.Prior to 1856 settled estates could not be sold or leased except under the authority of some po...
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...
Estate
Estate [fr. status, Lat.; etat, Fr.], the condition and circumstance in which an owner stands with regard to his property. The word is used in several senses and may denote either an estate in land; or an estate in property other than land; a legal estate or an equitable estate, land being an immovable is capable of being the subject of many estates existing concurrently with each other, thus the absolute ownership or fee simple may be leased and sub-leased, mortgaged and charged, each of the holders of these estates having a good legal or equitable estate at the same time; again, estates may be in possession, or in futuro; personal property may also be subject concurrently to a variety of ownerships, according to its nature; technically, in regard to land, the word is used to denote the quantity of interest, e.g., estate in fee simple, for life, for years, etc., in either legal or equitable estates. In practice its most important division is into real estate and personal estate, altho...
Merger
Merger [fr. mergo, Lat., to sink], an annihilation, by act of law, of a particular in an expectant estate consequent upon their union in the same person without an intervening estate in another person--thus accelerating into possession the expectant which swallows up the particular estate. It is the drowning of one estate in another, and differs from suspension, which is but a partial extinguishment for a time; while extinguishment, properly so termed, is the destruction of a collateral thing in the subject itself out of which it is derived. 'In order that there may be a merger, the two estates which are supposed to coalesce must be vested in the same person at the same time and in the same right' [Re Radcliffe, (1892) 1 Ch 231, per Lindley, LJ]. An estate tail, however is an exception to the rule; for a man may have in his own right both an estate tail and a reversion in fee; and the estate tail, though a less estate, will not merge in the fee, 2 Bl. Com. 177.The doctrine of merger pr...
Wills
Wills. A will is the valid disposition by a living person, to take effect after his death, of his disposable property. ''But in law ultima voluntas in scriptis is used, where lands or tenements are devised, and testamentum, when it concerneth chattels': Co. Litt. 111 a.Depository of Will of Living Person.-By the (English) Jud. Act, 1925, s. 172, replacing s. 91 of the Court of Probate Act, 1857:-There shall, under the control and direction of the High Court, be provided safe and convenient depositories for the custody of the wills of living persons, and any person may deposit his will therein.And see (English) Administration of Justice Act, 1928 (18 & 19 Geo. 5, c. 26), s. 11, as to deposit of wills under control of the High Court.Law before 1838.-The right of testamentary aliena-tion of lands is a matter depending on Act of Parliament. Before 32 Hen. 8, c. 1, a will could not be made of land, and before the Statute of Frauds a will (see NUNCUPATIVE WILL) could be made by word of mouth...
Passive trust
Passive trust, a trust as to which the trustee has no active duty to perform. Passive uses were resorted to before the Statute of Uses, in order to escape from the trammels and hardships of the Common Law, the permanent division of property into legal and equitable interests being clearly an invention to lessen the force of some pre-existing law. For similar reasons equitable interests were after the statute revived under the form of trusts. as such, they continued to flourish, notwithstanding the singular amelioration effected at a later period in the law of tenure, because the legal ownership was attended with some peculiar inconveniences. For, in order to guard against the forfeiture of a legal estate for life passive trusts, by settlements, were resorted to, and hence, trusts to preserve contingent remainders; and passive trusts were created in order to prevent dower.Where an active trust was created, without defining the quantity of the estate to be taken by the trustee, the court...
Conditional limitation
Conditional limitation partakes of the nature both of a condition and a remainder. At the Common Law whenever either the whole fee or a particular estate, as an estate for life or in tail, was first limited, no condition or other quality could be annexed to this prior estate, which would have the double effect of defeating the estate, and passing the lands to a stranger, for as a remainder it was void, being an abridgment or defeasance of the estate first granted, and as a condition it was void, as no one but the donor or his heirs could take advantage of a condition broken; and the entry of the donor or his heirs unavoidably defeated the livery upon which the remainder depended. On these principles it was impossible by the old law to limit by deed, if not by will, an estate to a stranger upon any event which might abridge or determine an estate previously limited. But the expediency of such limitations, assisted by the revolution effected by the Statute of Uses, at length established ...
Gift
Gift. The old text-writers made a gift (donatio) a distinct species of deed, and describe it as a conveyance applicable to the creation of an estate-tail; while a feoffment they strictly confine to the creation of a fee simple estate. The operative verb was 'give,' which no longer implies any covenant in law (Real Property Act, 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 106), s. 4), replaced by the Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 59(2), and the deed required livery of seisin. It is obsolete. See Jac. Law Dict.A gift is now understood to mean a mere voluntary assurance or transfer of property without any consideration being given for it. Such a transaction is apt to be very jealously scrutinized in a Court of Equity, and will be set aside on proof of undue influence (see that title), or of a fiduciary relationship of the donee to the donor, see Huguenin v. Baseley, (1806-8) 14 Ves 273; W. & T. L.C.; Morley v. Loughman, (1893) 1 Ch 736 (757); Lyon v. Home, (1868) LR 6 Eq 655. In the absence of any such objectio...
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