cessors; and the words "Lord High Chancellor" and "Lord Chancellor" respectively shall mean and include Keeper of the Great Seal and Commissioners for executing the office of Lord Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal; the word "court" shall be understood to mean any one of the superior courts of common law or equity at Westminster in which any such petition is presented; the word "relief" shall comprehend every species of relief claimed or prayed for in any such petition of right, whether a restitution of any incorporeal right, or a return of lands or chattels, or a payment of money or damages, or otherwise; and the word "judge" shall be understood to mean a judge or baron of any of the said courts respectively; and wherever in this act, in describing or referring to any person, party, or thing, any word importing the singular number or masculine or feminine gender is used, the same shall be understood to include and be applicable to several persons and parties as well as one person or party, and to females as well as males, and males as well as females, and bodies corporate as well as individuals, and several matters and things as well as one matter or thing, unless it otherwise be provided, or there be something in the subject or context repugnant to such construction. 17. In citing this act in any instrument, document, or pro- Short title. ceeding, it shall be sufficient to use the expression "The Petitions of Right Act, 1860." 18. Nothing in this act contained shall prevent any sup- Nothing to pliant from proceeding as before the passing of this act. prevent suppliant proceeding as SCHEDULE REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOING ACT. No. 1. Petition. In the Queen's Bench [or Common Pleas, or Exchequer of Pleas, or in Chancery]. To the Queen's most excellent Majesty. [Middlesex] The humble petition of A. B. of to wit. [state the facts]. his attorney, E. F. of Conclusion. by showeth that Your suppliant therefore humbly prays, that, &c. Dated the day of (Signed) A.D. or C. D., counsel for A. B. before. No. 2. The suppliant prays for a plea or answer on behalf of Her Majesty within twenty-eight days after the date hereof, or otherwise that the petition may be taken as confessed. To A. B. No. 3. You are hereby required to appear to the within petition, in Her Majesty's Court of Queen's Bench [Common Pleas, or Exchequer, or High Court of Chancery], within eight days, and to plead or answer thereto within fourteen after the date hereof. Take notice, that if you fail to appear or plead or answer in due time the said petition may, as against you, be ordered to be taken as confessed. Dated, &c. No. 4. In the Queen's Bench [or Common Pleas, or Exchequer of Pleas, or in Chancery]. Petition of Right. A. B., Suppliant, v. The Queen. C. D. appears in person. E. F., attorney for C. D., appears for him. If the appearance be in person, the address of the party appearing to be given. Entered the Certificate of a Judge of the Court of the Tenor and To the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury [or the Petition of Right of A. B. in Her Majesty's Court of I humbly certify, that on the A.D. day of it was, by the said Court of Queen's Bench [Common Pleas, or Exchequer, or High Court of Chancery] adjudged [or decreed, or ordered] that the above-named suppliant was entitled to, &c. Judge's Signature. [23 & 24 VICT. c. 38.] An Act to further amend the Law of Property.* [23rd July, 1860.] BE it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: Writs of to be regis 1. Whereas it is desirable to place freehold, copy hold, and customary estates on the same footing with leasehold estates, execution of in respect of judgments, statutes, and recognizances as judgments against purchasers and mortgagees, and also to enable pur- tered. chasers and mortgagees of estates, whether freehold, copyhold, or customary or leasehold, to ascertain when execution has issued on any judgment, statute, or recognizance, and to protect them against delay in the execution of the writ: Be it therefore enacted, that no judgment, statute, or recognizance to be entered up after the passing of this act shall affect any land (of whatever tenure) as to a bonâ fide purchaser for valuable consideration, or a mortgagee, (whether such purchaser or mortgagee have notice or not of any such judgment, statute, or recognizance,) unless a writ or other due process of execution of such judgment, statute, or recognizance shall have been issued and registered as hereinafter is mentioned before the execution of the conveyance or mortgage to him, and the payment of the purchase or mortgage money by him: Provided always, that no judgment, statute, or recognizance to be entered up after the passing of this act, nor any writ of execution or other process thereon, shall affect any land of whatever tenure as to a bona fide purchaser or mortgagee, although execution or other process shall have issued thereon, and have been duly registered, unless such execution or other process shall be executed and put in force within three calendar months from the time when it was registered. It is now provided by stat. 27 & 28 Vict. c. 112, s. 1, (post, Those sections only of this Act that relate to common law procedure or practice are here given in full. The Act is known as one of "Lord St. Leonards' Acts." Mode of registering. Provision for protection of heirs and executors against unregistered judgments. to proceed in equity in order to enforce his charge on the land. See stat. 27 & 28 Vict. c. 112, ss. 1, 5, note (post, pp. 505, 507). 2. The registry hereinbefore required of any writ of execution or other due process on any judgment, statute, or recognizance, in order to bind a purchaser or mortgagee, shall be made by a memorandum or minute referring to the judgment, statute, or recognizance already registered, so as to connect the registry of the writ of execution or other process therewith; such memorandum or minute to be left with the Senior Master of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, who shall forthwith enter the particulars in a book in alphabetical order by the name of the person in whose behalf the judgment, statute, or recognizance upon which the writ of execution or other process issued was registered, and also the year and the day of the month when every such memorandum or minute is left with him, and such officer shall be entitled for any such registry to the sum of five shillings; and all persons shall be at liberty to search the same book, in addition to all the other books in the same office, on payment of the sum of one shilling only and all the provisions in this act in regard to writs of execution or other process and the registry thereof, or otherwise relating thereto, shall extend, mutatis mutandis, to writs of execution or other due process issuing on judgments of the several courts of common pleas of the county palatine of Lancaster, and of pleas of the county palatine of Durham: but none of these provisions are to extend to Ireland. By stat. 27 & 28 Vict. c. 112, s. 3 ( post, p. 506), it is enacted, that writs of execution by virtue of which any land has been actually delivered in execution shall be registered in the manner provided by this section, but in the "name of the debtor" instead of the creditor, and that no other or prior registration of the judgment shall be necessary for any purpose. 2. And whereas by an act passed in the fourth and fifth years of their late Majesties King William and Queen Mary, intituled "An Act for the better Discovery of Judgments in the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer in Westminster," it was enacted, that no judgment not docketed and entered in books in the manner thereby provided should affect any lands or tenements as to purchasers or mortgagees, or have any preference against heirs, executors, or administrators in their administration of their ancestors, testators, or intestates' estates: And whereas by several later acts judgments are required to be registered with more particulars than were required by the said recited act; and it is thereby enacted that judgments not so registered shall not affect any lands, tenements, or hereditaments as to purchasers, mortgagees, or creditors, unless and until the same shall be registered in manner thereby required; and in obedience to a direction in one of the same acts con tained the dockets existing under the said first-recited act have been finally closed: And whereas the said several later acts do not expressly enact that judgments not docketed as thereby required shall not have any preference against heirs, executors, or administrators in their administration of their ancestors, testators, or intestates' estates, in consequence whereof such heirs, executors, or administrators have been held to have lost the protection which they enjoyed under the said first-recited act, and it is expedient that the same should be restored: Be it therefore declared and enacted, that no judgment which has not already been or which shall not hereafter be entered or docketed under the several acts now in force, and which passed subsequently to the said act of the fourth and fifth years of King William and Queen Mary, so as to bind lands, tenements, or hereditaments as against purchasers, mortgagees, or creditors, shall have any preference against heirs, executors, or administrators in their administration of their ancestors, testators, or intestates' estates. Before the passing of this section, if an administrator paid A judgment signed in 1854 but not registered till after the heirs and tered. 4. No judgments which since the passing of an act of the Judgments first and second years of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, in- as against tituled "An Act for abolishing Arrest on Mesne Process in executors to Civil Actions except in certain cases, for extending the be re-regisRemedies of Creditors against the Property of Debtors, and for amending the Laws for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors in England," (being one of the Acts herein before referred to,) have been registered under the provisions therein contained, or contained in the later act of the second and third years of Queen Victoria, chapter eleven, as explained and amended by the act of the session of the eighteenth and nineteenth years of Queen Victoria, chapter fifteen, (being two other of the acts herein before referred to,) or which shall hereafter be so registered, shall have any preference against heirs, executors, or administrators in their administration of their executors', testators', or intestates' estates, unless at the death of the testator or intestate five years shall not have elapsed from the date of the entry thereof on the docket or from the only or last re-registry thereof, as the case may be, * "Executors" is a misprint for "ancestors," per Kindersley, V.-C., in Evans v. Williams, (2 Drew. & S. 324; L. J. 34, Ch. 661.) |