Statute of Uses 1634
STATUTE OF USES 1634 | ||
CHAP. I. | ||
An Act expressing an Order for Uses, Wills, and Enrollments. | ||
27 H. 8. 10. Eng. | ||
How by the common law lands transferred. | ||
Several inconveniencies, by secret fraudulent conveyances to uses, and by wills. | ||
The remedy. | ||
The possession of lands, &c. shall be in them that have the use, confidence or trust in the same form and condition. | ||
WHERE by the common laws of this realme, lands, tenements and hereditaments, be not divisable by testament, nor ought to be transferred from one to another, but by solemne livery and seizin, matter of record or writing, sufficiently made, bona fide, without covin or fraud; yet nevertheless, divers and sundry imaginations, subtill inventions and practices have been used, whereby the hereditaments of this realme have been conveyed from one to another, by fraudulent feoffments, fines, recoveries, and other assurances craftily made, to secret uses, intents and trusts, and also by wills and testaments sometimes made by nude parolx and words, sometime by signs and tokens, and sometime by writing, and by the most part made by such persons as be visited with sickness in their extreame agonies and pains, or at such time as they have had scantly any good memory or remembrance, at which times they being provoked by greedy and covetous persons, lying in wait about them, do many times dispose indiscreetly and unadvisedly, their lands and hereditaments, by reason whereof, and by occasion of which fraudulent feoffments, fines, recoveries, and other like assurances to uses, confidences and trusts, divers arid many heires have been unjustly at sundry times disinherited, the lords lost their wards, marriages, reliefes, herriots, escheats, aides pur faire fitz chevalier, & pur file marier, and seantly any person can be certainly assured of any lands by them purchased, nor known surely against whom they shall use their actions or execution for their rights, title and duties: also men married have lost their tenancies by the courtesie, women their dowres, and manifest perjuries, by tryale of such secret wills and uses, have been committed; the King’s Highnesse hath lost the profits and advantages of the lands of persons attainted, and the lands craftily put in feoffment to the uses of aliens borne, and also the profits of wastes for a year and a day of lands of felons attainted, and the lords their escheats thereof, and many other inconveniencies have happened, and daily do increase among the King’s subjects, to their great trouble and unquietnesse, and to the utter subversion of the ancient common laws of this realme. For the extirping and extinguishment of all such subtill practised feoffment, fines, recoveries, abuses and errours heretofore used and accustomed in this realme, to the subversion of the good and ancient lawes of the same, and to the intent that the King’s Highness, or any other his subjects of this realme, shall not in any wise hereafter, by any means or inventions, be deceived, damaged, or hurted, by reason of such trusts, uses, or confidences. It may please the King’s most royal Majestie, that it may be enacted by his Highness, by the assent of the lords spirituall and temporall, and the commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by authority of the same, in manner and forme following, that is to fay: That where any person or persons Hand or be seized, or at any time hereafter shall happen to be seized, of and in any honours, castles, mannors, lands, tenements, rents, services, reversions, remainders, or other hereditaments, to the use, confidence, or trust of any other person or persons, or of any body politique, by reason of any bargaine, sale, feoffment, fine, recovery, covenant, contract, agreement, will or otherwise, by any manner means whatsoever it be, that in every such case, all and every such person and persons, and bodies politique, that have, or hereafter shall have any such use, confidence or trust, in fee simple, fee tayle, for terme of life or years, or otherwise; or any use, confidence, or trust, in remainder or reverter, shall from henceforth stand and be seized, deemed, and adjudged in lawfull seizin, estate and possession, of and in the same honors, castles, mannors, lands, tenements, rents, services, reversions, remainders, and hereditaments, with their appurtenances, to all intents, constructions and purposes in the law, of and in such like estates, as they had or shall have, in use, trust or confidence, of or in the same. And that the estate, title, right and possession, that was in such person or persons that were, or hereafter shall be seized, of any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, to the use, confidence or trust, of any such person or persons, or of any body politicke, be from henceforth clearly deemed and adjudged to be in him or them that have, or hereafter shall have such use, confidence or trust, after such quality, manner, form and condition, as they had before, in or to the use, confidence, or trust that was in them. |