A lease and release is a form of conveyance of real property involving the lease of land by its owner to a tenant, followed by a release (relinquishment) of the landlord's interest in the property to the tenant. This sequence of transactions was commonly used to transfer full freehold title to real estate under real property law. The lease and release was a mode of conveyance of freehold estates formerly common in England and in New York. [1] Between its parties it achieves the same outcome as a deed of grant/transfer/conveyance.
The lease and release is said by Blackstone to have been invented by Serjeant Moore, soon after the enactment of the Statute of Uses. It was a way of avoiding the Statute of Enrolments which required enrolment of a bargain and sale. A lease, in fact being a bargain and sale upon some pecuniary consideration for one year or some other nominal term, is made by the bargainor of a whole freehold (with no fetter on alienation) to a lessee who is in fact the bargainee (buyer), "by the force of the Statute made for transferring Uses into possession". This, without any enrolment, makes the bargainor stand seised to the use of the bargainee, and vests in the bargainee the use of the term. Then, the Statute of Uses operates to execute the use and annexe the possession. [2] Being thus in possession, the bargainee or lessee is capable of receiving a release of the freehold and reversion, made to the bargainee in possession; and, accordingly, the next day a "release" is granted to him by the bargainor. [3] As the lessee now owned both the current and future interests in the land, the lease and release amounted to a conveyance and was held to be equivalent to a feoffment. [4] The original lease and release was devised by Sergeant Moore for the benefit of Lord Norris, "to avoid the unpleasant notoriety of a livery or attornment." [5]
In 1841, the Conveyance by Release without Lease Act was passed, which made a "statutory release" sufficient in England for conveying freehold land without the need for an earlier lease by bargain and sale. [6] The release was finally replaced in England in 1845 by a simple "grant", called a conveyance. [7]
In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" is real property held without limit of time under common law, whereas the highest possible form of ownership is a "fee simple absolute", which is without limitations on the land's use.
In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death, when the property rights may revert to the original owner or to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant". The person who will take over the rights upon death is said to have a "remainder" interest and is known as a "remainderman".
A mortgage is a legal instrument of the common law which is used to create a security interest in real property held by a lender as a security for a debt, usually a mortgage loan. Hypothec is the corresponding term in civil law jurisdictions, albeit with a wider sense, as it also covers non-possessory lien.
This aims to be a complete list of the articles on real estate.
A deed is a legal document that is signed and delivered, especially concerning the ownership of property or legal rights. Specifically, in common law, a deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, affirms or confirms an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions, sealed. It is commonly associated with transferring (conveyancing) title to property. The deed has a greater presumption of validity and is less rebuttable than an instrument signed by the party to the deed. A deed can be unilateral or bilateral. Deeds include conveyances, commissions, licenses, patents, diplomas, and conditionally powers of attorney if executed as deeds. The deed is the modern descendant of the medieval charter, and delivery is thought to symbolically replace the ancient ceremony of livery of seisin.
An estate in land is, in the law of England and Wales, an interest in real property that is or may become possessory. It is a type of personal property and encompasses land ownership, rental and other arrangements that give people the right to use land. This is distinct from sovereignty over the land, which includes the right to government and taxation.
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user to pay the owner for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial or business equipment are also leased. In essence, a lease agreement is a contract between two parties: the lessor and the lessee. The lessor is the legal owner of the asset, while the lessee obtains the right to use the asset in return for regular rental payments. The lessee also agrees to abide by various conditions regarding their use of the property or equipment. For example, a person leasing a car may agree to the condition that the car will only be used for personal use.
A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant has rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal property.
A real estate contract is a contract between parties for the purchase and sale, exchange, or other conveyance of real estate. The sale of land is governed by the laws and practices of the jurisdiction in which the land is located. Real estate called leasehold estate is actually a rental of real property such as an apartment, and leases cover such rentals since they typically do not result in recordable deeds. Freehold conveyances of real estate are covered by real estate contracts, including conveying fee simple title, life estates, remainder estates, and freehold easements. Real estate contracts are typically bilateral contracts and should have the legal requirements specified by contract law in general and should also be in writing to be enforceable.
The Settled Land Acts were a series of English land law enactments concerning the limits of creating a settlement, a conveyancing device used by a property owner who wants to ensure that provision of future generations of his family.
The Law of Property Act 1925 is a statute of the United Kingdom Parliament. It forms part of an interrelated programme of legislation introduced by Lord Chancellor Lord Birkenhead between 1922 and 1925. The programme was intended to modernise the English law of real property. The Act deals principally with the transfer of freehold or leasehold land by deed.
English property law is the law of acquisition, sharing and protection of valuable assets in England and Wales. While part of the United Kingdom, many elements of Scots property law are different. In England, property law encompasses four main topics:
A freehold, in common law jurisdictions such as England and Wales, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and twenty states in the United States, is the common mode of ownership of real property, or land, and all immovable structures attached to such land.
A deed of trust refers to a type of legal instrument which is used to create a security interest in real property and real estate. In a deed of trust, a person who wishes to borrow money conveys legal title in real property to a trustee, who holds the property as security for a loan (debt) from the lender to the borrower. The equitable title remains with the borrower. The borrower is referred to as the trustor, while the lender is referred to as the beneficiary.
The history of English land law can be traced back to Roman times. Throughout the Early Middle Ages, where England came under rule of post-Roman chieftains and Anglo-Saxon monarchs, land was the dominant source of personal wealth. English land law transformed further from the Anglo-Saxon days, particularly during the post-Norman Invasion feudal encastellation and the Industrial Revolution. As the political power of the landed aristocracy diminished and modern legislation increasingly made land a social form of wealth, subject to extensive social regulation such as for housing, national parks and agriculture.
The Statute of Enrolments or Enrolment of Bargains of Lands, etc. Act 1535 was a 1536 Act of the Parliament of England that regulated the sale and transfer of land. The Statute is commonly considered an addition to the Statute of Uses, which was passed within the same Parliament, probably due to an omission in the Statute of Uses. It is thought to have been intended to prevent secret conveyancing, although modern academics instead assert that it was so Henry VIII could keep an accurate record of who his freeholders were. The Statute, which only provided for estates "of inheritance and freehold", was easily evaded through the sale of an estate for a limited time period as leasehold, followed by subsequent "release", confirmed in 1621 by Lutwich v Mitton.
Easements in English law are certain rights in English land law that a person has over another's land. Rights recognised as easements range from very widespread forms of rights of way, most rights to use service conduits such as telecommunications cables, power supply lines, supply pipes and drains, rights to use communal gardens and rights of light to more strained and novel forms. All types are subject to general rules and constraints. As one of the formalities in English law express, express legal easements must be created by deed.
The Rule in Shelley's Case is a rule of law that may apply to certain future interests in real property and trusts created in common law jurisdictions. It was applied as early as 1366 in The Provost of Beverly's Case but in its present form is derived from Shelley's Case (1581), in which counsel stated the rule as follows:
when the ancestor by any gift or conveyance takes an estate of freehold, and in the same gift or conveyance an estate is limited either mediately or immediately to his heirs in fee simple or in fee tail; that always in such cases, "the heirs" are words of limitation of the estate, not words of purchase.
Kent v Kavanagh[2006] EWCA Civ 162 is an English land law case, concerning easements. It concerns physically shared amenities with physically divided ownership as to the land or surface on which they rest.
English personal property law is a branch of English property law concerned with non-land based property interests.