to surrender being inserted in that deed, and the covenants for title relating both to the copyholds and the freeholds. But the practice is not to be commended, for, independently of the consideration that the price of the copyholds ought not to be paid until by the surrender of the vendor the legal title to admittance is vested in the purchaser, and that the surrender may be made just as readily and with as much propriety before as after the execution, it is very questionable whether the covenants for title to the copyhold will run with the land if they are entered into before the surrender. Among the precedents in this work will be found assurances of copyholds where the surrender precedes, and others where it follows, the execution of the deed of covenants for title, but in the absence of any special reason to the contrary, the surrender on a sale should be made before the deed is executed. In the case of a mortgage of copyholds the deed is usually executed before a surrender takes place. The legal assurances of copyholds, viz. the surrenders and admittances, are usually prepared by the stewards of the manors; consequently only a few precedents of such assurances are given in the present collection. A large number will be found in Stansfield's Copyhold Precedents, and in the works of Mr. Watkins and Mr. Scriven on Copyholds. In some manors it is the custom that the stewards shall prepare all surrenders for a reasonable fee; and such a custom is valid (e). (e) R. v. Rigge, 2 B. & Ald. 550; R. v. Bishop's Stoke, 8 Dowl. P. C. 608. Surrenders, &c., usually pre pared by the stewards. Fines payable only on admittance. Fines on admittance of joint tenants. Joint tenants may release to each other by deed. The lord occasionally, though very rarely, demands a fine on a surrender, but his right to a fine on surrender if it exist at all, which is very doubtful, depends on a special custom: as a general rule a fine is payable only on admittance. Upon an admission of joint tenants it is a common custom for the second to pay half as large a fine as the first, and for the third to pay half as much as the second, and so on; the aggregate amount of such fines, however numerous the joint-tenants, being always less than double the amount of the first fine, but the amount of the fines and fees payable on admission is determined by the custom of each manor. In the absence of a custom to the contrary the lord may, where several tenements are devised to the same persons as joint tenants, require a separate admittance to and a separate set of fees for each tenement, but not a separate fee for the admittance of each joint tenant; and the steward is not entitled to a full set of fees in respect of each tenement, but only upon a quantum meruit for his additional labour (ƒ). Except by special custom the lord is entitled to only one heriot, and by parity of reasoning it would scem to only one fine, on alienation by joint tenants (g). One joint tenant may by deed without surrender effectually release his interest to his co-tenant, and the release needs no fresh admittance; because the first admittance was of them and every of them (); but if one of three joint tenants release his part to (f) Traherne v. Gardner, 5 E. & B. 913. (g) Padwick v. Tyndale, 1 E. & E. 184. (h) Wase v. Petty, Win. 3; Com. t. 37, c. 2, s. 48. another of his companions the release holds that part with himself and his companions in common, though the two still continue to hold their original shares in jointure (¿). Where a copyhold tenement descends or is con veyed to tenants in common, a full separate fine, set of fees, and stamp is payable by each tenant in common however numerous they may be; and if tenants in common join in surrendering to a purchaser he must on admittance pay a fine, set of fees, and stamp duty in respect of each tenant in common (j), but after the several estates have been reunited in one person, only a single fine, fee and heriot, is payable (k); no reunion taking place till the several admittances are completed (). Fines on adtenants in mittance of common. fines, but not expenses of married woman's him. It has been said (m) that the purchaser pays the Purchaser pays fine on admittance, and the steward's fees both on the surrender and admittance; but it is conceived surrender to that he is not bound to pay, and ought not to pay, the expenses of the examination before the steward, or by a commission of a married woman surrendering copyholds, since that is a mode of assurance analogous to the acknowledgment of a deed of conveyance of freeholds, the cost of which is always borne by the vendor, and this is in accordance with an opinion of Mr. Hayes given on the point. (i) Lit. S. 304, 312. (j) R. v. Manor of Everdon, 16 L. J. Q. B. 18; R. v. Eton Coll., 8 Q. B. 526; Evans v. Upsher, 16 M. & W. 675. (k) Holloway v. Berkeley, 6 B. & C. 2; over-ruling Attree (m) Drury v. Man, 1 Atk. Lord compellable to admit. Forfeiture of copyholds. Conveyances of leaseholds, ment. The lord may be compelled by writ of mandamus from the Court of Queen's Bench to admit any person entitled to become his tenant. Copyholds may be forfeited for a breach of the customs of the manor: among the commonest breaches on this score may be mentioned the commission of waste (n), and the granting of leases by the tenant without the lord's licence. The lord may become absolutely entitled to a customary tenement of inheritance either by forfeiture, escheat, or surrender to his own use; and in all these cases, and also upon the expiration of any customary estate where no customary inheritance exists, the lord may make a new grant of the tenement in the manner prescribed by custom (0). The instrument of conveyance of leaseholds or terms of years, and of every description of personal chattel for which a conveyance is used, is termed an of an assign assignment. An assignment is defined by Blackstone to be "a transfer or making over to another of the right one has in any estate." In modern practice the term is applied principally to instruments by which personal estate, or chattels, or chattels real, or rights in real or personal estate, are expressed to be conveyed. The word "assign" is the proper technical word of assignment; but other words are often added, and any expressions showing the intent of the parties to (n) Pulling down an old house even with the intention of building a new one is waste, Doe v. Earl of Burlington, 8 B. & Ad. 507; but a custom for copyholders to dig clay and make bricks and sell them is good, Lord Salisbury v. Gladstone, 8 W. R. 642 Ex. Ch. (2) Burton, 1343. make a complete transfer will constitute an assignment. Previously to the Statute of Frauds, an assignment might have been by parol only; but by that statute it is enacted, that all assignments of leases or terms of years shall be by deed or note in writing, duly signed; and at the present day all formal assignments are made by deed. leases. In assignments of leaseholds the lease is usually Mode of reciting recited formally, and the parcels set out in the recital; but this formal recital is necessary only in cases in which it is required to show who the lessor is, as in the case, e. g., where his consent is needed for the assignment (p); and although where the property in the lease has remained in an unaltered state, and the whole of it is to be assigned, the parcels may be as well described in the recitals as in the operative part of the deed, yet there is no peculiar advantage gained by thus describing them; and in many instances the assignment may be taken either by an indorsement on the lease, or by a deed without recitals. An assignment without recitals should, if possible, be employed where the description of the property has been materially changed by building or otherwise since the lease was granted. It is not usual to insert general words in assignments of leaseholds, because it is considered that the lease contains them, and only what is in the lease is to be assigned. But in some cases, and especially in assignments of old leases, or of building leases, new (p Ante, vol. i. p. 50. General words assignments of not usual in leases. |