Freehold - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: freehold Page: 2Feoffment
Feoffment [fr. feoffare, to give a feud,] the transfer of freehold land, in ancient times, by word of mouth and livery of seisin, i.e., by the delivery to the transferee of corporal possession of the land or tenement; see 2 Bl. Com. 310. Writing and deed (theretofore having become gradually more usual) were successively required by the (English) Statute of Frauds (29 Car. 2, c. 3, s. 1), and the (English) Real Property Act, 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. 106), s. 3; and by s. 2 of the latter Act, all real property, as regards conveyance of the immediate freehold thereof, is transferable as well by grant as by livery, so that a transfer by deed alone is all that is necessary, and transfer by livery, though not in terms abolished, became obsolete before the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 51, which declares that all lands and interests therein lie in grant and are incapable of being conveyed by livery or by livery and seisin, or by feoffment, and by s. 52 all conveyances of land or any int...
Customary freeholds
Customary freeholds have been converted into 'socage tenure' by the (English) Law of Property Act, 1922, s. 189, see COPYHOLD. Owing to its historical intrest the following note has been preserved unaltered from the previous edition of the Lexicon. ' Also denominated, privileged copyholds of frank tenure; they were known inancient times as estates inprivileged villenage or villein socage, and are estates held by custom, but not at the lord's will, in which they differ from copyholds; yet the will of the lord in copyhold is reduced to a mere fiction. These lands are of such singular nature that, when they are compared with mere copyholds, they may be called freeholds, and when compared with absolute freeholds, they maybe denominated copyholds. While the freehold interest or estate rests with the tenant, the freehold tenure is in the lord. (Mr. Serjeant Scriven dissents from this proposition in his workon Copyholds, vol. ii. pp. 572 et seq.) They are usually transferred by surrender into...
Chattels or catals
Chattels or catals [fr. Catalla, Lat.; chatel, Fr.; chaptel, Old Fr.]. The word 'catalla' among the Normans primarily signified only beasts of husbandry or, as they are still called, cattle, but in a secondary sense the term was extended to all movables and not only to these but to whatsoever was not a fief or feud or, at a later date, in the nature of freehold or parcel of it. The distinction in the class of chattels survives in the legal meaning of the terms, 'personal chattels,' denoting movable property and 'chattels real,' which concern the realty, such as terms of years of lands or tenements, wardships, the interest of tenant by statute staple, by statute merchant, by elegit, and such like, Co. Litt., 118 b.Chattels personal or in a more narrow and more modern sense, 'chattels' (cf. 'goods and chattels' in the writ of fieri facias) (q.v.), means movable property or effects which belong personally to the owner and for which if they are injuriously withheld from him he has, in gene...
Abatement
Abatement, a making less:-(1) Abatement of Freehold.-The title of a real action which has been abolished. This takes place where a person dies seised of an inheritance, and before the heir or devisee enters, a stranger, having no right, makes a wrongful entry and gets possession of it. Such an entry is technically called an abatement, and the stranger an abater. It is, in fact, a figurative expression, denoting that the rightful possession or freehold of the heir or devisee is overthrown by the unlawful intervention of a stranger. Abatement differs from intrusion, in that it is always to the prejudice of the heir or immediate devisee, whereas the latter is to the prejudice of the reversioner or remainder man: and disseisin differs from them both, for to disseise is to put forcibly or fraudulently a person seised of the freehold out of possession, Co. Litt. 277a.(2) Abatement of Nuisances.-A remedy allowed by law to a person injured by a nuisance to remove or put an end to it by his own...
Attendant term
Attendant term. Terms for years in real property are created for many purposes, e.g., to furnish money for the payment of debts, to secure rent charges or jointures, to raise portions for younger children, daughters, etc. Now, although the purpose for which the term was originally created has been satisfied or has failed, yet, not being surrendered, it continued to exit, the legal interest remaining in the trustees, to whom it was at its creation limited, or, if deceased, in their personal representatives; but the person entitled to the inheritance then became, according to equitable principle, entitled to the beneficial interest in such term, and the term or was held to be such person's trustee. This beneficial interest was subordinate to and merely attendant upon the higher estate possessed by the owner of the inheritance, and yet completely consolidated with it, following the inheritance in all the various modifications and changes to which it might be subjected by act of law or arr...
Constructive notice
Constructive notice. The knowledge which is imputed to a party: (a) if he omits to make the usual and proper inquiry into the title of property which he has purchased; (b) if he omits to investigate some fact which has been brought to his notice suggesting the existence of such title or claim; (c) if he deliberately refrains from inquiry in order to avoid notice. See Halsbury, L.E., vol. 13, and the person affected with constructive notice takes, if at all, subject to the title or claim, whether he knew of it or not; for instance, a purchaser of land who is satisfied to take a shorter title than he could call for by statute is affected by notice of all trusts and equities of which he would have had notice if he had seen the full title. See Cox and Neve's Contract, (1891) 2 Ch 109; Patman v. Harland, (1881) 17 CD 353 illustrates the doctrine. It was there held that: (a) notice of a material document is notice of its contents, and (b) although the (English) Vendor and Purchaser Act, 1874...
Contingent remainder
Contingent remainder, a remainder limited so as to depend on an event or condition which may never happen or be performed, or which may not happen or be performed till after the determination of the preceding estate, Fearne, Cont. Remainders.The legal estate in contingent remainders has been abolished by the Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 1. S. 4, whoever, provides that they can take effect as equitable interests, and any instrument creating a contingent remainder has become a settlement under s. 1 (ii) of the (English) S.L. Act, 1925. See SETTLED LAND.In Smith d. Dormer v. Parkhurst, (1740) 18 Vin. Abr. 413; 6 Bro. Cas. Par. 351, the Court held that, in every case where an estate is given to A. for life, the grantor has an interest remaining in him to enter upon the estate, if it should determine by any act of the tenant amounting to a forfeiture; that this right is inherent in the grantor, from the nature of the estate itself, and may be conveyed to trustees; and that, when it is conv...
Executory devise
Executory devise. Mr. Fearne (Cont. Rem. 386) defines an executory devise to be, strictly, such a limitation of a future estate or interest in lands or chattels (though, in the case of chattels personal, it is more properly an executory bequest) as the law admits in the case of a will, though contrary to the rules of limitation in conveyances at Common Law. It is only an indulgence allowed to a man's last will and testament, where otherwise the words of the will would be void; for wherever a future interest is so limited by devise as to operate as a contingent remainder, such an interest is not an executory devise, but a contingent remainder.Executory Devises have been divided into three kinds, two relative to real, and the third to personal estate only, viz.:-(1) Where a testator devises his whole fee-simple, but upon some contingency qualifies such devise, and limits an estate on the contingency; e.g., a devise of land to the testator's wife for life, remainder to C., his second son ...
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...
Reversion
Reversion [fr. revertor, Lat.], that portion left of an estate after a grant of a particular portion of it, short of the whole estate, has been made by the owner to another person. it is thus described by Mr. Watkins (Conv. C. 16): 'When a person has interest in lands, and grants a portion of that interest, or in other terms, a less estate than he has in himself, the possession of those lands shall, on the deter-mination of the granted interest or estate, return, or revert to the grantor. This interest is what is called the grantor's reversion, or more properly, his right of reverter, which, however, is deemed an actual estate in the land, bearing the fruits of seigniory. Thus a grant to an estate by the owner of the fee-simple: to A. for life,' leaves in the grantor the reversion in fee-simple, which will commence in possession after the determination of A.'s life-estate; and this is called the particular estate; particular, as carved or sliced out of the larger estate or reversion.'S...
- << Prev.
- Next >>