with power of consent to or approval of the exercise of such power of sale, and (failing them) any persons appointed as trustees for this purpose by the court, on the application of a guardian or next friend of the infant (b), may enter into and continue in possession of the land, and may exercise the following powers (c), that is to say:-(1) To manage or superintend the management of the land,-with power to fell timber or cut underwood in the usual course; and with power to rebuild (and to repair) houses and other buildings, and to continue the working of mines, and to drain or otherwise improve the land, and to insure against loss by fire, and to make allowances to and arrangements with tenants and others, and to determine tenancies and to accept surrenders and the like, the trustees being (in their management) subject to (but subject only to) the same restrictions as the infant, if of full age, would be subject to (d); (2) Out of the income of the land, including the produce of the sale of timber and underwood, to pay the expenses incurred in the management, and all outgoings not properly payable by any other person, and the interest on mortgage debts (e); and (3) To apply at discretion any income for the infant's maintenance, education or benefit, or pay thereout any money to the infant's parent or guardian to be applied for the same purposes (f); and thereafter (4) To invest the residue of the income, accumulating the income of the investments in the way of compound interest; and (5) To stand possessed of the accumulated fund (without prejudice to their right to apply such fund as if the same were income of the current year) (g), on the trusts following (namely): First, if the infant attains the age of twenty-one years, then in trust for the infant; or if the infant being a female marries while an infant, then in (b) In re Cowley, [1901]1 Ch. 38. (c) Welch v. Channell, (1884) 26 Ch. D. 58, at p. 63. (d) 44 & 45 Vict. c. 41, s. 12, sub-s. (2). (e) Sect. 42, sub-s. (3). trust for the infant for her separate use; but, secondly, if the infant dies while an infant and, being a female, without having been married, then (subject to any settlement affecting the fund or the land from which the income has arisen) in trust for the infant's personal representatives as part of the infant's personal estate. By sect. 43, where any property is held by trustees in trust for an infant, either for life or for any greater interest, and whether absolutely or contingently on his attaining the age of twenty-one years, or on the occurrence of any event before his attaining that age (h), the trustees may at their sole discretion pay to the infant's parent or guardian, if any, or otherwise apply for or towards the infant's maintenance, education, or benefit, the income of that property or any part thereof, whether there is any other fund applicable to the same purpose, or any person bound by law to provide for the infant's maintenance or education or not; and the trustees are to accumulate the residue at compound interest, and to hold these accumulations (without prejudice to their right to apply them as income of the current year), for the benefit of the person who ultimately becomes entitled to the property from which the same arise. COMPLETION OF CONVEYANCE.-When the conveyance has been duly drafted, the next step is its completion by due execution. With regard to this the Acts we are considering contain also certain provisions. In the first place, then, the vendor entitled legally and beneficially must convey, and, in case he is dead, his personal representatives must do so. When the personal representatives convey, this is not to affect the beneficial right of any person in respect of the land (Con. Act, 1881, s. 4). Where the legal estate is outstanding in a trustee or (h) In re Jeffery, [1891] 1 Ch. 671; In re Burton's Will, [1892] 2 Ch. 38; In re Holford, [1894] 3 Ch. 30; In re Averill, [1898]1 Ch. 523. mortgagee, he must join to convey it, and in case he is dead his personal representatives, and not his heir, must convey it if the land be leasehold or freehold (Con. Act, 1881, s. 30), but not if it be copyhold (Copyhold Act, 1894, s. 88). Where a married woman is a "bare trustee" (i.e., a trustee with no active duties to perform), she may convey as a feme sole (Trustee Act, 1893, s. 16). Where there is an incumbrance on the land, and the incumbrancer will not or cannot join in the conveyance, the court may by order discharge the land from the incumbrance, on the substitution of some other adequate security for it (Con. Act, 1881, s. 5). And in the same way, when the land is subject to a quit rent, rentcharge, or other perpetual annual sum, not being rent reserved in lieu of any purchase money, it may be discharged therefrom under certificate of the Board of Agriculture (Copyhold Department), specifying the redemption value thereof, and upon payment or tender of that value, and upon a further certificate of the Board to the effect that the rent in question is redeemed (Con. Act, 1881, s. 45). In the next place, as to the mode of executing the conveyance, the purchaser is not entitled to have it executed in his own presence, but he can insist that its execution shall be attested by a person who may be his solicitor (Con. Act, 1881, s. 8). Where the solicitor of the vendor, whether the vendor be beneficial owner (Con. Act, 1881, s. 56) or a trustee (Trustee Act, 1893, s. 17), produces the purchase deed duly executed by the vendor, and such deed contains a receipt for the purchase money, either in the body of the deed or endorsed on it, that will be sufficient authority to justify the purchaser in paying the purchase money to the solicitor. In the next place, where the sale is made under an order of the High Court, the order constitutes a protection to the purchaser purchasing in faith of it (Con. Act, 1881, s. 70) (hh); and if the purchaser obtains a certificate (hh) Jones v. Barnett, [1900] 1 Ch. 370. from the Central Office (now the Land Registry Office) of an official search for judgments, deeds, etc., which are required by law to be registered or enrolled, this will be in his favour conclusive against any judgments, deeds, etc., not appearing in such certificate (Con. Act, 1882, s. 2). CHANGES IN THE GENERAL LAW.-We have now dealt with the changes effected by the Acts now under consideration in the practice of conveyancing. There are several other points which, though all more or less affecting the practice of conveyancing, are rather to be considered primarily as amendments of the general law. 1. Conveyance to grantor jointly with another, or by husband to wife, or wife to husband. The nearest of these points to a direct change in the form of a conveyance is the provision of sect. 50 of the Conveyancing Act, 1881, that henceforth a grantor may, by ordinary conveyance, convey freehold land to himself jointly with another, and that a husband may in the same way convey to his wife and she to him. At common law a man could not convey to himself; nor (they being regarded in law as one person) a husband to his wife, nor a wife to her husband. Accordingly, where such conveyances were necessary, they were made by way of use. Now they can be made by ordinary conveyance; except that, when a man wishes to convey to himself alone, he must still convey by way of use. 2. Leases. The Acts under consideration contain several important provisions more or less new with regard to leases. The first of these refers to covenants and conditions. By sect. 10 of the Conveyancing Act, 1881, it is provided, in favour of the lessor (i), that the rent reserved by the lease, and the benefit of every covenant or provision on the lessee's part therein contained, having reference to (i) Baynton v. Morgan, (1888) 22 Q. B. D. 74. S.C.-VOL. I. G G the subject-matter thereof, and of the condition of re-entry therein contained, shall be annexed to and go with the reversion immediately expectant on the lease,-and this notwithstanding the severance of that reversion. By sect. 11, it is provided, in favour of the lessee (k), that the obligation of every covenant on the lessor's part contained in the lease, having reference to the subject-matter of the lease, shall, if and as far as the lessor has power to bind the reversion immediately expectant on the lease, be annexed to and go with that reversion, and this notwithstanding the severance of that reversion. Sect. 12 enacts, as regards conditions of re-entry (and other conditions), that, when either the reversion upon the lease is severed, or the lease itself as to part of the hereditaments thereby demised is determined, notwithstanding such severance of the reversion or such cesser of the term as to part of the land, every condition of re-entry or other condition shall be apportioned, and remain annexed to the several parts of the reversion, and be in force, in like manner as if the land comprised in each severed part, or the land as to which the term remains subsisting, had alone originally been comprised in the lease. The chief alteration in the law made by these enactments is with regard to rights of re-entry for conditions broken. Previously the only rights of re-entry which survived the severance of the reversion on a lease were rights of re-entry for non-payment of rent, which were protected by the Law of Property Amendment Act, 1859 (). Sect. 12 (supra) (and apparently sect. 10 also) extends this protection to the right of re-entry for any condition broken. The next provision with regard to leases refers to relief from forfeiture for condition broken. This is dealt with by sect. 14 of the Conveyancing Act, 1881, as amended by sects. 2, 4, and 5 of the Conveyancing Act, 1892 (m). Just (k) Wilson V. Queen's Club, [1891] 3 Ch. 522. (1) 22 & 23 Vict. c. 35, s 3. |