PART I. DUTY. paper duly stamped. If a banker pay money upon unstamped orders, knowing that they were drawn at a distance beyond fifteen CHAPTER II. miles, or that they are wrong dated in point of time or place, Deeds exempthe will not be allowed to recover the amount; Swan v. Bank of ED FROM STAMPScotland, 5th February 1835; reversed on appeal, 6th July 13 S. 403; 2 1835. By 17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83, § 7, no unstamped draft or Sh. & M'L. App. 67. order can be remitted or circulated beyond fifteen miles from the bank where it is payable, under a penalty of £50. But by § 8 any such draft, if lawfully issued unstamped, may, by affixing an adhesive stamp before it has gone beyond the assigned limit, be made negotiable beyond that distance. Appraisements for legacy duty. Agreement for a lease, the rent being under £5. Agreement for hire of a labourer, artificer, manufacturer, menial servant, and of a mariner from port to port in Great Britain. Indentures of poor children. Indentures, bonds, contracts, and agreements made in the United Kingdom, as to service in British colonies of any artificer, servant, clerk, labourer, &c.-(17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83.) Bonds of Friendly Societies. Bond in confirmation of executor, the estate being under £20. Commissions to General Assembly and other Church courts. Receipts for money deposited in banks. Receipts on promissory notes, bills of exchange, and drafts or orders. Letters acknowledging the safe arrival of bills of exchange, promissory notes, or other securities, were formerly exempted; but this exemption was repealed by the 13th section of 17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83. Receipts or discharges indorsed or written upon a bond, mortgage, or other security duly stamped, acknowledging receipt of the sums, principal and interest, thereby secured. Receipts for the duty upon fire insurance. Receipts for money paid to the Crown; 17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83, § 14. Public maps and certain other public documents are not stampable, though referred to in a deed or instrument; 17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83, § 22. Wills, testaments, testamentary instruments, and dispositions mortis causá of every description. PART I. CHAPTER II. STAMP ACTS, conta 16 D. 991. By the Bankruptcy Act, 2 & 3 Vict. cap. 41, § 145, there is an exemption from stamp duties upon conveyances, sales, and proceedings under that statute, in so far as the payment of such duties would diminish the estate to the creditors, or to the bankrupt himself if reinvested.* The duties imposed by the Act 55 Geo. III. are affected by subsequent statutes; in particular, by 7 & 8 Vict. cap. 21, reductions are made on sea insurances, agreements chargeable previously with a duty of £1 are reduced to 2s. 6d., and powers of attorney to vote in meetings of joint stock companies, of which the stock is divided into shares and transferable, are also reduced to a duty of 2s. 6d. Duplicates or counterparts of deeds are, by 13 & 14 Vict. cap. 97, chargeable with reduced rates of stamp duty; and an omission in 16 & 17 Vict. cap. 63, to extend such reduced duty to deeds specified under the head "Conveyance," is supplied by the 15th section of 17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83. By the 1 & 2 Vict. cap. 85, stamps denoting duties payable in one part of the United Kingdom may be used for instruments liable to stamp duties payable in any other part, provided the stamps so used are of equal or greater amount than those charged on such instruments, and provided also that no stamp specially appropriated by a mark on its face to one particular instrument shall be used for another. Instruments made out of this country or at sea do not require to be stamped in terms of the Act 55 Geo. III., which directs the duties thereby granted to be levied "in and throughout the whole of "Great Britain." But here the duties imposed by 17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83 upon foreign bills must be kept in view. Our Courts will not regard the want of a stamp in a foreign deed, although a stamp may be requisite to such deed by the law of the country where it was made, because our Judges will not notice the revenue laws of another state. But it is different if the instrument has been made in a foreign country subject to the Sovereign of this realm, in which case it will be a good objection that it is not impressed with the duty payable where it was made. It has been laid down as a general rule in the construction of the Stamp Acts by the English Judges, to whose opinion in such matters weight is attached in our Courts, that the cases in which duty is to *By 6 Geo. IV. c. 41, § 1, bills of sale, conveyances, assignments, &c., for the sale or transfer, either absolutely or otherwise, of a ship, or share of a ship, are exempted from stamp-duty. A letter acknowledging the receipt of a sum as the price of shares of a ship is not a document falling under the above exemption. It is truly a receipt for money; and, if unstamped, it is not legal evidence of payment, and cannot be used as a declaration of trust; Davidson v. Swanson, 21st June 1854. attach must be fairly and explicitly marked out by the terms of the statutes, and that a liberal construction is to be given to words of exemption. PART I. CHAPTER II. STAMP ACTS, It is well understood, that no single instrument which is liable to conta. one specific duty is chargeable under any two or more heads or denominations. Thus a deed, containing both a personal bond and a disposition of lands in security of the amount, is chargeable only with the duty imposed upon a mortgage, and not with both a bond stamp and a mortgage stamp, although the schedule contains both of these denominations. But when the same deed is made for more than one valuable consideration, it is, by § 16 of 17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83, chargeable with stamp duty in respect of each. And if one deed contains more than one contract or instrument or transaction, there must be a distinct stamp for each of these. Thus three acts of infeftment under three separate warrants, though in favour of the same party, were held to require separate stamps; Mackintosh v. Grant, 12th May 9 S. 583. 1831. A deficiency in this respect cannot be supplied by annexing stamps on separate sheets. Where an agreement is contained in various letters or other documents, and these serve to constitute the same agreement, one stamp is sufficient. And although there may be several subjects of contract, if they all manifestly form part of only one transaction, one stamp is sufficient. Thus you may have a personal bond for money secured both by a disposition of lands and an assignment of a life policy or other moveable property, and the mortgage stamp will cover them all. This is well illustrated by the case of Brown v. Bedwell, 3d 9 S. 136. December 1830, where a deed, containing a personal bond by a husband and an heritable security by his wife, was held liable only to a single ad valorem mortgage duty. But where a conveyance of land contained a bond for an annuity, it was held, in consequence of the provisions under the word "conveyance," to require both a conveyance stamp, and the stamp imposed upon the grant of an annuity; Wilkie 12 D. 818. v. Flowerdew, 5th March 1850. App. No. 5. Composition contracts, discharges by creditors, and relative deeds, though subscribed by many parties, are ruled by the same principle, and held to refer to one matter, viz. the estate for division, and so require only one stamp. It was so decided in the case of Johnston & Co. M. v. "Writ," v. Attwell, 7th March 1801, with regard to an obligation granted by several parties to pay the debts owing to the six creditors of one person. Where an instrument liable to stamp duty is not stamped, it is not NULLITIES admissible as evidence. This is expressly enacted by the 59th sec- ACTS. tion of the 9th and 10th Will. III. cap. 25, which is continued by subsequent statutes, and is now in force. But an exception has been introduced by 17 and 18 Vict. cap. 83, § 27, which admits unstamped instruments in evidence in any criminal proceeding. In civil suits UNDER STAMP PART I. the rule continues unaltered. The Court, therefore, cannot look at CHAPTER II. an unstamped instrument, further than to ascertain that it is liable STAMP ACTS, to the objection. This was exemplified in the case of Cadzow v. conta Wilson, 4th January 1830, where an unstamped missive of sale 5 Murray, 98. was not admitted as evidence, even although the objection to it was not insisted in by the party against whom it was adduced. No consent of parties can cure a defect by which the public revenue suffers. The same enactment, however, provides the remedy, that the instrument may be admitted upon payment of the duty and of a penalty, and upon the instrument being stamped with a lawful stamp. The power of getting deeds stamped after execution is facilitated by § 12 of the Statute 13 and 14 Vict. cap. 97, the commissioners being authorized to remit the whole or a part of the penalty upon the deed being presented to be stamped within twelve months, where the execution without a stamp has proceeded from accident, mistake, inadvertency, or urgent necessity, and without wilful design to defraud the revenue; and by § 13, deeds executed abroad may be stamped, without a penalty, within two months from their being received in this country.* There are certain instruments, however, to which the remedy is not available. By the 23 Geo. III. cap. 49, § 14, bills of exchange, promissory-notes, and receipts or discharges, are declared inadmissible as evidence, unless properly stamped before being written; and this is still in force with this modification, that, by 35 Geo. III. cap. 55, § 11, receipts and discharges may be stamped within a fortnight upon payment of the duty and a penalty of £5, and within a month upon payment of the duty and £10; and, by the 37 Geo. III. cap. 136, § 5, bills and notes See supra, p.85. written upon stamps of sufficient value but of a wrong denomination may be stamped correctly, upon payment of the duty and a penalty. It has been already noticed that, by 17 & 18 Vict. cap. 83, § 10, the penny stamps for receipts may be used for drafts, and the penny stamps for drafts for receipts, notwithstanding the special appropriation. But there is no remedy for a bill or note written upon a stamp of a wrong denomination and of too small value; and, with these explanations, it is certain that a bill, promissory-note, or receipt, written upon paper unstamped or stamped with too low a duty, is incurably defective, and not admissible as evidence. This is strongly illustrated in the case of Greenock Bank v. Darroch, 12th December 1834, where a party admitted his signature as drawer and indorser of a bill of exchange written upon an insufficient stamp; and yet, the Court being forced by the Stamp Acts to lay the bill out of view, he was held not liable for the amount, unless the holder could prove the debt by other evidence than the bill. But, although unavailing to prove the payment to which it refers, an unstamped receipt may be used for what is called a collateral purpose, e.g., an unstamped receipt See p. 93, and note. 13 S. 190. PART I. for rent, though it cannot be used to prove the payment, may be adduced to prove the fact of tenancy. Upon this principle, in Mathe- CHAPTER II. son & Son v. Ross, 27th March 1849, an unstamped receipt was ad- 6 Bell's App. mitted to prove a state of accounts written upon it, that state of 374. accounts not being dependent upon proof of the payment. The same is the case with respect to policies of sea insurance, which are absolutely null, if not stamped when written; and the Commissioners are forbidden to stamp them by the 15th section of 35 Geo. III. cap. 63. The duties on sea insurances in the general Act 55 Geo. III. are repealed, and others imposed by the 3 & 4 Will. IV. cap. 23. ING. Indentures of apprenticeship are absolutely void, if the consideration be not truly set forth in them; and also, though otherwise unexceptionable, they are absolutely void, if not duly stamped within three months, when executed within fifty miles from the limits of the weekly bills of mortality, and, when at a greater distance, within six months. The duty on indentures is reduced by 16 & 17 Vict. cap. 59. With these exceptions, deeds may be stamped, on payment of a AFTER-STAMPpenalty, at any time; and where a deed is deficient in this respect, the Court, if eraved in due time, will sist process, to afford time for getting it stamped. It is needless to refer to the numerous cases in which this has been done. In Church v. Sharpe, 8th 5 D. 876. March 1843, a party was allowed to get a minute of lease stamped, after having at an early stage of the litigation declined to avail himself of the power so to validate the document. Even after a deed has been placed upon record, the Court will grant warrant to transmit it to the Stamp Office to be stamped, on security being found to return it to the register; Laidlaw, 21st January 1840. 15 F. C. 356. With regard to the expense of stamping, the Court imposed that burden upon the granter of the obligation, in Gardiner's Executrix v. 2 D. 155. Bennett, 28th November 1839, on the ground that implement ought to have been given without rendering any action necessary, and that he ought to have given a valid obligation at first. But it is important to observe that where the granter becomes bankrupt, this expense will fall upon the receiver of the unstamped document; Law v. 11 D. 1489. M'Laren, 20th July 1849; here it was observed on the Bench, that the policy of the law requires the Court to check the practice of using unstamped documents. The expense of stamping a mutual deed founded on by both parties was imposed equally upon them, in Logan v. Ellice, 6th March 1850.† The expediency of using stamped 12 D. 841. In Bannatyne v. Wilson, 13th December 1855, an account containing entries of money 18 D. 230. as paid, was, although unstamped, allowed to be produced as evidence, not of the payment of the sums of money, but of the state of the balance as between the parties at the date at which it was rendered. + A gratuitous assignation, unstamped, was produced in a litigation as a title by a party who, on the want of stamp being stated as an objection, had it stamped. It was held that, though the party producing such a document as his title prevailed in the litigation, and was found entitled to expenses generally, yet he was bound to put himself in titulo to use it, |