{"id":6118,"date":"2017-11-01T21:43:58","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T21:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/?page_id=6118"},"modified":"2017-11-01T21:43:59","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T21:43:59","slug":"writ-of-escheat-allows-a-lord-to-take-possession-of-lands-that-had-reverted-to-him-when-a-tenant-dies-without-heirs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/?page_id=6118","title":{"rendered":"Writ of Escheat – allows a lord to take possession of lands that had reverted to him when a tenant dies without heirs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writ of Escheat<\/span>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>(17c.) Hist<\/em>. A writ allowing a lord to take possession of lands that<\/strong><\/span>
\nhad escheated to him.<\/strong> See ESCHEAT (1).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Definition of Escheat<\/span>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>n. (14c.) l.<\/strong> Hist<\/em>. The reversion of land ownership back to the lord\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>when the immediate tenant dies without heirs. 2. Reversion of property <\/strong>(esp.\u00a0<\/em><\/span>real property)<\/em> to the state upon the death of an owner who has neither a will nor\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>any legal heirs. 3. Property that has so reverted.<\/strong> See heirless estate<\/em> under\u00a0<\/span>ESTATE (3). escheat, vb. -escheatable, adj<\/em>.\u201d <\/strong>[1]<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Excerpt from\u00a0George Crabb’s\u00a0A History of English Law<\/a><\/em>:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cEscheat, from the French eschoir, to fall incidentally,\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>was the casual descent of lands and tenements to the lord\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>propter defectum sanguinis<\/strong><\/span> [for lack of inheritable blood], that\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/span>is, when the tenant died without heirs; which was a part of the\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>feudal system in every country.<\/span>\u201d <\/strong>[2]<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Excerpt fromJames Kent’s\u00a0Commentaries on American Law<\/a><\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cAll escheats, under the English law, are declared to be<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nstrictly feudal, and to import the extinction of tenure… The rule\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>[was] that if lands were held in trust and the cestui que trust\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>without heirs, the lands did not escheat to the crown, but the\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>trustee,’being in esse and in the legal seisin of the land, took the\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>land discharged of the trust, and bound as owner for the feudal\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>services. But as the feudal tenures do not exist in this country,\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>there are no private persons who succeed to the inheritance by<\/strong><\/span>
\nescheat; and the state steps in the place of the feudal lord, by\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>virtue of its sovereignty, as the original and ultimate proprietor\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>of all the lands within its jurisdiction.<\/span>\u201d<\/strong> [3]<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDefinition of<\/span> Estate<\/span>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c3. The property that one leaves after death; the collective assets and\u00a0<\/span>liabilities of a dead person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Excerpt from G.C. Cheshire’s Modern Law of Real Property<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThe word \u2018estate\u2019 was probably adopted because in early days\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>it was possible to ascertain a man\u2019s status or position in life by\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>discovering the particular kind of tenure by which he held his\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>lands.\u00a0 The quality of his tenure gave a clue to his status.\u00a0 The\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>baron for example ought in theory to be the holder of a barony;\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>he has the status of a baron because he has the estate of a\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>baron. . . . [O]ne of the distinguishing marks of [the] freehold\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>estates was the uncertainty of their duration.\u00a0 They were\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>invariably held either for life, or for some other space of time\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>dependent upon an event which might not happen within a\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>lifetime, and thus a freehold estate came to be regarded as one\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>which involved the performance of free services only, but as\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>one which endured for an uncertain time. In this way, the\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span>word ‘estate’ came to denote the quantity of a man’s interest in<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nland.<\/span>\u201d <\/strong>[4]<\/span><\/p>\n

Definition of Heirless Estate<\/span>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>(1956) The property of a person who dies intestate & without\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>heirs.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

References:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

[1]:\u00a0\u00a0Black\u2019s Law Dictionary\u00a0Deluxe Tenth Edition\u00a0by Henry Campbell Black & Editor in Chief Bryan A. Garner<\/a>. ISBN: 978-0-314-62130-6<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

[2]:\u00a0\u00a0George Crabb, A History of English Law<\/a> 79 (1st Am. ed.<\/strong><\/span>
\n1831)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

[3]:\u00a04 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law<\/a> *423-24
\n(George Comstock ed., 11th ed. 1866)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

[4]: G.C. Cheshire, Modern Law of Real Property 26 (3d ed. 1933)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writ of Escheat: \u201c(17c.) Hist. A writ allowing a lord to take possession of lands that had escheated to him. See ESCHEAT (1).\u201d Definition of Escheat: \u201cn. (14c.) l. Hist. The reversion of land ownership back to the lord\u00a0when the immediate tenant dies without heirs. 2. Reversion of property (esp.\u00a0real property) to the state upon … Continue reading Writ of Escheat – allows a lord to take possession of lands that had reverted to him when a tenant dies without heirs<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":6109,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6118","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6119,"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6118\/revisions\/6119"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reunitethestates.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}