Legal Terms in Land Records

30 Jun 1996

We should say at the outset that we are not lawyers, but we have collected here a number of terms that appear in deeds, legal proceedings, and queries in the Usenet genealogy groups. We've done our best to decode their meaning.

The laws relating to land records are often dealt with by common law (unwritten law based on custom and precedent rather than laws passed by the government), and determining legal rights can be highly intricate. If you have a legal matter to resolve regarding land, we suggest you contact several real estate attorneys and find one you're comfortable with. An attorney's fees are inexpensive insurance if you consider the value of the property in question.

Legal and Other Terms

• Administrator/administratrix - A person appointed by the court to settle the estate of someone who died intestate.
• Admit - see Copyhold.
• Adverse Possession - Gaining title to another's land by exercising the rights of ownership of that land unchallenged for a period of time, typically on the order of five to ten years, and meeting other requirements (as set by each state). See seizin.
• Alien - To transfer (lands, title) to another.
• Alienation - A transfer of title or property to another.
• Allodial - see alodium
• Alodium - Land owned independently, without rent or other obligation to another. See Freehold Estate. The alodial (also 'allodial') system is opposed to the feudal system.
• Assigns - Anyone acting on behalf of or in place of the nominal owner. The owner may have transferred his rights to someone else or appointed an attorney to act on his behalf.
• At will - Terminable by the lord of the manor at any time.
• Cadastral Map - Land ownership map. Generally used for tax purposes.
• Claim - see Entry.
• Collateral - Property put up by someone getting a loan. If they fail to repay the loan, the property goes to the person granting the loan.
• Consideration - The money (or other property) used to purchase land.
• Copyhold - A tenancy at will that was recorded in a manorial court ownership roll. The lord of the manor maintained the list. Copyholds were not, strictly speaking, inheritable, but were customarily so. The land reverted to the landowner who would then "admit" the heir to the lands of the decedent.
• Customary Estate - see copyhold
• Decedent - one who has died.
• Deed - A document giving the holder the title to property.
• Dower - A wife's interest in her husband's property, inheritable at his death. English probate law set this at 1/3. "Her thirds" was a phrase used for this. In the U.S. it was common for a woman to formally relinquish her dower claim on land sold by the husband. This further guaranteed that the property was clear of all obligations. In some areas the lack of a dower relinquishment at the time of sale was proof that the man was single or widowed.
• Easement - Use of a portion of property for some stated purpose without remuneration. Easements are not estates in that they do not convey ownership, but rather the use of the property in so far as needed for the stated purpose. An example is the easement a city may have to dig up part of your land to repair the water main.
• Entry - Filing of the intention to get a land grant or patent. This was the first step of a multi-step process of getting land, the other steps generally being Survey, and Grant.
• Escheat - Land ownership reverting to the Crown, government, or estate owner because of a lack of heirs.
• Estate - A property right held by someone. There can be many estates held on a single piece of property, for example, relating to specific uses of the property. Mineral rights, water rights, and so on are examples. Estates can be subordinate (lower in rank) to other estates.
• Executor/executrix - The person named in a will to carry out the terms of the will. See administrator.
• Fee - Heritable land held in return for service to a lord.
• Fee simple - Ownership of land that can be inherited by any heirs. To hold in fee means to possess.
• Fee tail - Ownership of land restricted to a specified class of heirs, generally direct descendants.
• Feoff - See fee
• Feoffment - Transfer of inheritable real property.
• Feoffee - One who benefits from a fief.
• Feud - See fee.
• Feudal system - The system of land holding in exchange for service, ultimately to the king. This is opposed to the alodial system.
• Fief - See fee.
• Freehold - see fee simple
• Grant - Transfer of title from the government to the first titleholder of a piece of property. This term is generally used by states and the federal government. See also patent.
• Grantee - The person receiving a grant, or buying property.
• Grantor - The person issuing the grant, or selling property.
• Headright - The right of free immigrants to claim land for themselves and minor children. In Virginia each such person could claim 50 acres of land. Indentured servants could claim their land after completion of their indenture. Headrights could be sold or assigned to others.
• Importation right - See headright.
• Improve - To make land more valuable by clearing and planting. Land that was not improved by the owner might revert to the government.
• Indenture - A written agreement. (Originally, the document was written in duplicate, and the two copies placed side by side and 'indented', or cut, with a wavy line so they fit together perfectly.)
• Intestate - Having no will. If someone dies intestate, the court appoints an administrator to settle the estate.
• Instrument - Legal document.
• Investiture - See livery of seizin.
• Lease and Release - A practice in early Virginia that is equivalent to a sale. It was accomplished by a two step process of leasing the property in question to the buyer, then releasing the buyer of the lease obligation.
• Livery - Delivery of ownership.
• Livery of Seizin - An open and 'notorious' public ceremony conferring ownership of a freehold estate.
• Moiety - One half. One of two equal parts. A share or portion.
• Mortgage - Today we think of this as a secured loan (for example, a loan with a house as collateral). In older times it was often written as a regular deed of sale with a condition attached such that the sale was void if certain payments are made by a certain date.
• Patent - Transfer of title from the government to the first titleholder of a piece of property. This term was generally used by the Crown or its representative. See also grant.
• Possessory - Relating to ownership.
• Prove Up - See Improve.
• Probate - The process of proving a decedent's will and settling the estate. The signing of a will was typically witnessed by neighbors, who would later swear in court that they saw the decedent sign the will prior to death. This "proved" that the will was actually that of the decedent.
• Quitclaim Deed - A common type of deed in which the seller relinquishes claim to rights on the property, but does not guarantee that that the property is actually free of claims by others.
• Quit Rent - A rent paid in lieu of required feudal services. See fee and socage.
• Remainder - Transfer of ownership to someone on the death of another. For example, land may be sold to person A for use during their lifetime, but then remaindered to person B at the death of A.
• Revert - Return of ownership to a former owner (or heirs).
• Seizin - Ownership or 'in fact' possession of a freehold estate. Inferred here is an increasing degree of ownership with the passage of time, as the possessor makes productive use of the land. Seizin was originally not an estate, but a way to gain one, as by adverse possession. This is rooted in the Roman concept that whoever worked the land should be its owner.
• Sergeantry - Non-military service to a lord in exchange for land.
• Socage - Holding of land by a tenant in return for fixed payment or for non-military service to the lord. This system was eventually replaced by our system of taxation. See quitrent.
• Soke - The jurisdiction of a court.
• Teste - Witness.
• Testate - Having a will.
• Thirds - see dower
• Title - Legal ownership
• Warrant - A governmental order authorizing some action. An arrest warrant instructs a sheriff to arrest someone. A land warrant instructs a state to issue land to someone.
• Waste Land - Land that has not been claimed, or which has escheated.

Sources

• Black's Law Dictionary
• Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1979
• Jerry R. Broadus, LS, Esq., "The Surveyor and the Law", regular column in P.O.B.
• soc.genealogy newsgroup postings
• Discussions with several lawyers