Personal Estate - Law Dictionary Search Results
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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...
Occupancy
Occupancy, mere possession or use either by agreement or otherwise without other claim (if any) to the ownership or enjoyment of property, also taking possession of land to which no one else lays claim or without leave of the owner.The right of occupancy has been confined by the laws of England within a very narrow compass, e.g., where a person was tenant pur autre vie, or had an estate granted to himself only (without mentioning his heirs) for the life of another man, and died without alienation, during the life of the cestui que vie, or him by whose life it was holden; in this case, he that entered first on the land was called the occupant or common occupant and might lawfully retain the possession so long as the cestui que vie lived, by right of occupancy, see Re Michell, Moore v. Moore, (1892) 2 Ch 96. The title of common occupancy is now, in effect abolished, for it is enacted by the Wills Act, 1837, s. 3, that an estate pur autre vie, of whatever tenure, and whether it be an inco...
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...
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...
Contingent legacy
Contingent legacy, one bequeathed on a contingency; e.g., if the legatee attain twenty-one.The contingency may only relate to the disposal of the fund, or it may relate to the position or existence of the beneficiary; in the first case as in a bequest to be paid or payable to A. when he shall attain twenty one years, the legacy is vested and not contingent and although he may never attain the age his personal representatives will be entitled to the legacy, but if the words 'paid' or 'to be payable' are omitted and the legacy is to A. on attaining twenty-one years of age his personal representatives will not be entitled to the legacy if he dies under that age. These are said to be positive rules of construction, Williams on Executors and Administrators, 12th Edn. P. 794, but the prima facie inference may be negatived by the context of the will taken as a whole. There are certain other guides to construction, e.g., in general, a gift of interest in the interim or a direction to pay maint...
Charitable uses and trusts
Charitable uses and trusts. 9 Geo. 2, c. 26, commonly called 'The Mortmain Act,' 1735, after reciting that ifts or alienations of land in mortmain (see MORTMAIN) were prohibited by Magna Charta and other whole-some laws as prejudicial to the common utility, and that such public mischief had greatly increased by many large and improvident dispositions, made by languishing or dying persons to charitable uses, to take place after their deaths to the disherison of their lawful heirs, enacted that no lands or other hereditaments whatsoever, nor money, or personal estate to be laid out in land should be given to any person or bodies corporate, or charged by any person in trust, for any charitable uses, unless such gift, etc., should be made by deed (thus entirely excluding gifts by will) executed twelve months before the death of the donor and be enrolled in the court of Chancery within six calendar months after execution, and be without any power of revocation for the benefit of the donor.T...
Alien
Alien [fr. alienigena, alibi natus, Lat.], a person not born within His Majesty's dominions and allegiance (q.v.). See definitions in the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Acts, 1914 and 1933, infra. At common law aliens were subject to very many disqualifications, the nature of which is shown by the (English) Act of 1844, 7 & 8 Vict. c. 66, which greatly relaxed the law in their favour. It provided, inter alia, that every person born of a British mother should be capable of holding real or personal estate; that alien friends might hold every species of personal property except chattels real; that subjects of a friendly power might hold lands, etc., for the purposes of residence or business for a term not exceeding twenty-one years; and it also provided for aliens becoming naturalized.Alien, (UK) is a person who is neither a Common-wealth citizen nor a British protected person nor a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. Aliens therefore include both persons having the nationality ...
Covenant
Covenant [fr. Covenant, Fr.], any agreement, convention, or promise of two or more parties, by deed in writing, signed, sealed, and delivered, by which either of the parties pledges himself to the other that something is either done or shall be done, or stiuplates for the truth of certain facts. He who thus promises is called the covenantor; and he to whom it is made the covenantee. A covenant being part of a deed is subject to the general rules for the construction of such instruents; as, first, to be always taken most strongly against the covenanter and most in favour of the covenantee; secondly, to be taken according to the intent of the parties; thirdly, to be construed ut res magis valeat quam pereat; fourthy, when no time is limited for its performance, that it be performed in a reasonable time.Covenants are personal obligations; formerly the did not bind theheirs of the covenanter unless the heirs were named and inthat case only to the extent of the lands descended, but if made ...
Distribution, Statute of
Distribution, Statute of (22 & 23 Car. 2, c. 10), now only applied to intestacies prior to 1926, repealed by (English) Administration of Estates Act, 1925 (see WIDOW), explained by the Statute of Frauds, 29 Car. 2, c. 3, enacts that the surplusage of intestates' personal estate (except of femes covert, the administration and enjoyment of whose estates belonged, at Common Law, to their husbands-but see MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY) shall, after the expiration of one year from the death of the intestate, be distributed in the following manner: one-third shall go to the widow of the intestate, and the residue in equal proportions to his children, or, if dead, to their representatives, that is, their lineal descendants; if there be no children or legal representative subsisting ,then a moiety shall go to the widow, and a moiety to the next of kindred in equal degree, and their representatives; if no widow, the whole shall go to the children; if neither widow nor children, the whole shall be di...
Trust
Trust, is a comprehensive expression, as covering not only the relationship of trustee and beneficiary but also that a bailor and bailee master and servant pledger and pledgee, guardian and ward and all other relations which postulate the existence of fiduciary relationship between the complainant and the accused, State v. K.P. Jain, (1983) 2 Crimes 947 (All).Trust, is a trust for public purposes, the substances and primary intention of the creator must be seen, Shabbir Husain v. Ashiq Husain, AIR 1929 Oudh 225.Trust, is an obligation annexed to ownership. A trustee holds property 'subject' to an obligation, which the testator has imposed upon him, Mahadeo Ramchandra v. Damodar Vishwanath, AIR 1957 Bom 218: (1957) 59 Bom LR 478.Means any arrangement whereby property is transferred with intention that it be administered for another's benefit is a trust. It casts an obligation on the trustee to use the property for achieving the purpose for which the trust is created, Baba Jamuna Das Mah...
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