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registered in the manner prescribed by this act, in which it is declared that every such deed shall be as effectual as if the tenant in tail had levied a fine, or suffered a recovery thereof.

50. It has been stated that money, agreed or directed to be laid out in the purchase of land,

And Money is Tit. 1. 6.

considered in equity as land. In cases of this kind,

entailed.

Edwards 7.

Warwick,

where the land was directed to be conveyed to a 2 P. Wms. person in tail, it was a settled rule in Chancery, that 171. wherever a fine, which may be levied at any time, would have rendered the party absolute owner of the land, he was entitled to receive the money immediately. If a recovery, which can only be suffered in term time, was necessary, there the Court of Chancery would direct the money to be actually laid out in the purchase of land; in order to give the persons in remainder their chance of the first tenant in tail's dying before he could suffer a recovery.

51. By the statute 39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 56. reciting the practice of courts of equity, as stated in the preceding section, it is enacted, that courts of equity, on petition of the first tenant in tail, and of the party having any prior estate, being adults, or of femes covert, being separately examined, may order such money to be paid to them, or applied as they shall appoint.

52. Upon a petition under this act, by a tenant for life, and the first of several tenants in tail in remainder, Lord Rosslyn said, that having consulted Lord Kenyon, Lord Eldon, and the Master of the Rolls, as to the manner in which the act should be executed, they had agreed that it would be proper not to order the money to be paid out of court, till such time as the tenant in tail might actually have suffered a recovery of the land. The court made

Lowton v.

Lowton,

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vs. 12.n.

Ves.

6 Ves. 116, 576.

the order; but directed that it should have no effect unless the tenant in tail should be living on the second day of the next term.

It is also now settled that in cases of this kind

8 Ves. 609. there must be a reference to the master to inquire whether the parties had in any manner incumbered their interests in the money.

TITLE III.

ESTATE FOR LIFE.

CHAP. I.

Of the Nature of an Estate for Life, and its Incidents.

CHAP. II.

Of Waste by Tenants for Life,

CHAP. I.

Of the Nature of an Estate for Life, and its Incidents.

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A

N estate for life is a freehold interest in lands,

Descrip

the duration of which is confined to the life or tion of

lives of some particular person or persons; or to the happening or not happening of some uncertain event. It is in most respects similar to the ususfructus of the civil law; which is thus defined in Justinian's Institutes:- Ususfructus est jus alienis Lib. 2. tit .4. rebus utendi fruendi, salva rerum substantia. For the

VOL. I.

I

How created.

Holman
v. Exton,

Carth. 246.
Vide stat. 6.

Anu. c. 18.
2 Cox, R.
373.

1 Inst. 41 b.

tenant for life has a right to the possession, and annual produce of the land, during the continuance of his estate; without having the proprietas, that is, the absolute property and inheritance of the land itself; which is vested in some other person.

2. Estates for life are of two sorts; either expressly created by deed, or some other legal assurance, or else deriving their existence from the operation of some principle of law.

3. The first of these, which is the subject of the present title, arises where lands are conveyed to a man for the term of his own life, or that of any other person, or for more lives than one: in all which cases he is called tenant for life, except where he holds during the life of another; and then he is called tenant pour auter vie.

4. When a person having an estate for his or her own life, either by express limitation, or by the operation of some principle of law, grants it over; the grantee becomes tenant pour auter vie.

5. By the statute 19 Cha. II. c. 6. § 2., it is enacted, That if the persons for whose lives estates are granted shall go abroad, and no sufficient proof be made that they are alive; in any action commenced for the recovery of the lands, by the lessors or reversioners, the judge shall direct the jury to give their verdict as if the persons so remaining abroad were dead. And it has been held that a remainder man is within this statute.

6. If lands are conveyed to a person for his own life, and that of A. and B. the grantee has an estate of freehold determinable on his own death, and the deaths of A. and B.; nor can there be any merger of the freehold, during the lives of A. and B. into the estate which the lessee has for his own life; because

though an estate for a man's own life is greater than an estate for the life of any other person; yet here the lessee has not two distinct estates in him, but only one freehold, circumscribed with that limitation, as the measure of its continuance.

7. The estates for life mentioned in the preceding sections will generally endure as long as the life or lives for which they are granted. But there are some estates for life which may determine upon future contingencies, before the death of the persons to whom they are granted.

8. Thus if an estate be given to a woman, dum 1 Inst. 42 a. sola fuerit, or durante viduitate, or to a man and a woman during coverture, or as long as the grantee shall dwell in a particular house; in all these cases the grantees have estates for life, determinable upon the happening of these events.

9. If a manor generally worth £10 a year be 1 Inst. 42 a. granted to a person till he has received out of it £100, 6 Rep. 35 b. this will give him an estate for life: for as the profits

are uncertain, and may rise and fall, no precise time can be fixed for the determination of the estate.

Grantor.

10. Tenants for life hold of the grantors by fealty, Held of the and such other reservations as are contained in the deed by which the estate is created. Where there is Lit. § 132. no reservation, they hold by fealty only; this estate not being comprehended within the provisions of the Dissert. c. 3. statute Quia Emptores.

$ 22.

Not entail

able.

11. An estate for life is not capable of being entailed under the statute De Donis; for all estates Tit. 2. c. 1. tail must be estates of inheritance. Therefore, where § 24. an estate for life or lives is limited to a person and the heirs of his body, the latter words only operate as a description of the persons who shall take as Low v. special occupants, during the life or lives for which Burron, 3 P.

Wms. 262.

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