|
|
English Legal History
4/20/2009
Outline
|
|
USES AND the STATUTE OF USES
|
|
|
a.
|
The modern trust as an example
|
|
|
b.
|
The medieval feoffment to uses, feoffees, feoffor, cestui que use
O—>A, B, and C and to the survivor of them, to the use of O
|
|
|
|
i.
|
This is a feoffment to uses. The conveyance would be made by the ancient
form of conveyance of a freehold, by feoffment with livery of seisin.
|
|
|
|
ii.
|
O is the feoffor.
|
|
|
|
iii.
|
A, B, and C, are the feofees. They hold by joint tenancy with right of
survivorship, which means that when one of them dies the others inherit and
the heirs of the first to die do not inherit.
|
|
|
|
iv.
|
The person who has the use (O in this case) is called the cestui que use.
|
|
|
c.
|
Who are the feofees?
|
|
2.
|
The orgins of the medieval use
|
|
|
a.
|
Lords holding ad opus their
tenants
|
|
|
b.
|
Use of a “straw”
|
|
|
c.
|
The Franciscans
|
|
|
d.
|
Avoidance of statute of Mortmain (1279), statute of 1391
|
|
|
e.
|
Conditional grants
|
|
|
f.
|
Guardians in socage
|
|
|
g.
|
Testamentary dispositions
|
|
|
h.
|
The arrangement becomes permanent
|
|
3.
|
Uses and the law
|
|
|
a.
|
Common law does not recognize interest of cestui
|
|
|
b.
|
Chancery does recognize it
|
|
|
c.
|
The notion of the resulting use
|
|
|
d.
|
Statute of 1 Richard 3, c.1 (1484)
|
|
4.
|
The uses of uses. Consider the will of Lord Dacre of the South (Mats.
p. IX–91)
|
|
|
a.
|
The feoffees were to raise marriage portions out of the land for two of
the lord’s kinswomen (not his daughters but other female kin).
|
|
|
b.
|
They were to hold the chief manor for Thomas, the lord’s heir, his
grandson, his eldest son, William, having predeceased him, until he was of
age and convey it to him in fee tail male, with remainder in fee tail male
to his second son, with remainders over.
|
|
|
c.
|
They were to convey another manor to the younger son directly in fee
tail male, etc.
|
|
|
d.
|
All the rest of his lands they were to raise portions to pay his debts
and funeral expenses and to raise marriage portions for various other kinswomen,
and after this was done, they were to make them
over to the heir in tail male as above.
|
|
5.
|
Disadvantages of the use from the point of view of public policy
|
|
|
a.
|
Secret conveyance
|
|
|
b.
|
Evasion of feudal incidents
|
|
6.
|
Fiscal feudalism:
|
|
|
a.
|
Statutes in the reign of Henry VII (1489, 1504).
|
|
|
b.
|
Proposed statute of 1529.
|
|
|
c.
|
Arguments against the use and Lord
Dacre’s Case (1535).
|
|
|
d.
|
Statute of Uses (1536): Under it, legal title passed automatically to
the cestui que use. Much more important for parliament at the time,
all previous feoffments to uses and the conveyances made pursuant to them
were validated.
|
|
|
e.
|
Statute of Enrollments (1536): Designed to eliminate the problem of
secret conveyances by requiring that the bargain and sale of freeholds be
recorded.
|
|
|
f.
|
Statute of Wills (1540): Authorized, for the first time, the devise of much
of English land, a devise that would be valid in law. One-third of the land
devised by a tenant in chief would be subject to the feudal incidents. The
same parliament also established a separate court of wards, so great was
the anticipated wardships from the new statute.
|
|
|
g.
|
Abolition of military tenures (1660).
|
|