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niory without the consent of his vassal. See Sir Martin Wright's Introduction to the Law of Tenures, 30, 31. . . This necessity, which subsisted in our old law, that the tenant should consent to the alienation of the lord, gave rise to the doctrine of attornment. At the common law attornment signified only the consent of the tenant to the grant of the seigniory; or, in other words, his consent to become the tenant of the new lord. But after the statute quia emptores terrarum was passed, by which subinfeudation was prohibited, it became necessary, that when the reversioner or remainder-man, after an estate for years, for life or in tail, granted his reversion or remainder, the particular tenant should attorn to the grantee; as the particular tenant must, otherwise, have held of the remainder-man, and he of the chief lord; by which a new tenure would be created. The necessity of attornement was, in some measure, avoided by the statute of uses, as by that statute the possession was immediately executed to the use; and by the statute of wills, by which the legal estate is immediately vested in the devisee. Yet attornment continued after this to be necessary in many cases. But both the necessity and efficacy of attornments have been almost totally taken away by the statutes of 4 and 5 Anne, c. 16, and 11 Geo. 2, c. 19. -Butler's

note, 272.

STAT. 4 ANNE (1705), c. 16, § 9. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the said first day of Trinity term, all grants or conveyances thereafter to be made, by fine or otherwise, of any manors or rents, or of the reversion or remainder of any messuages or lands, shall be good and effectual, to all intents and purposes, without any attornment of the tenants of any such manors, or of the land out of which such rent shall be issuing, or of the particular tenants upon whose particular estates any such reversions or remainders shall and may be expectant or depending, as if their attornment had been had and made.

§ 10.

Provided, nevertheless, that no such tenant shall be prejudiced or damaged by payment of any rent to any such grantor or conusor or by breach of any condition for non-payment of rent, before notice shall be given to him of such grant by the conusee or grantee.

4 KENT COM., 490. There was this essential difference between a feoffment and a grant; while the former carried destruction in its course, by operating upon the possession, without any regard to the estate or interest of the feoffor, the latterly benignly operated only upon the estate or interest which the grantor had in the thing granted, and could lawfully convey. Feoffment and grant were the two great disposing powers of transfer of land, in the primitive ages of the English law.

The necessity of the attornment was partly avoided by the modern modes of conveyance under the statute of uses; and it was at last completely removed by the statutes of 4 and 5 Anne, c. 16, and 11 George II. c. 19; and it has been equally abolished in these United States. The New York Revised Statutes have rendered the attornment of the tenant unnecessary to the validity of a conveyance by his landlord; though, to render him responsible to the grantee, for rent or otherwise, he must have notice of the grant. Nor will the attornment of a tenant to a stranger be valid, unless made with his landlord's consent, or in consequence of a judgment or decree or to a mortgagee after forfeiture of the mortgage.

The New York Revised Statutes have given to deeds of conveyance of the inheritance or freehold, the denomination of grants; and, though deeds of bargain and sale, and of lease and release may continue to be used, they are to be deemed grants. That instrument of conveyance is made competent to convey all the estate and interest of the grantor, which he could lawfully convey; and it passes no greater or other interest.1

1 New York Revised Statutes, Vol. I. 738, secs. 137, 138, 142, 143.

N. Y. REAL PROP. LAW, § 213. An attornment to a grantee is not requisite to the validity of a conveyance of real property occupied by a tenant, or of the rents or profits thereof, or any other interest therein. But the payment of rent to a grantor by his tenant before notice of the conveyance, binds the grantee; and the tenant is not liable to such grantee, before such notice, for the breach of any condition of the lease.

CHAPTER V.

RELEASE.

LIT., § 444. Releases are in divers manners, viz., releases of all the right which a man hath in lands or tenements, and releases of actions personalls and realls, and other things. Releases of all the right which men have in lands and tenements, &c., are commonly made in this forme, or of this effect:

$445. Know all men by these presents, that I, A. of B., have remised, released, and altogether from me and my heires quiet claimed: or thus, For mee and my heires quiet claimed to C. of D. all the right, title, and claim which I have, or by any meanes may have, of and in one messuage with the appurtenances in F., &c. And it is to bee understood, that these words, remisisse, et quietum clamasse, are of the same effect as these words, relaxasse.

§ 446. Also, these words which are commonly put in such releases, scilicet (quae quovismodo in futurum habere potero) are as voide in law; for no right passeth by a release, but the right which the releasor hath at the time of the release made. For if there be father and sonne, and the father bee disseised, and the sonne (living his father) releaseth by his deed to the disseisor all the right which he hath or may have in the same tenements without clause of warrantie, &c., and after the father dieth, &c., the sonne may lawfully enter upon the possession of the disseisor, for that hee had no right in the land in his father's life, but the right descended to him after the release made by the death of his father, &c.

§ 447. Also, in releases of all the right which a man hath

in certaine lands, &c., it behooveth him to whom the release is made in any case, that hee hath the freehold in the lands in deed, or in law, at the time of the release made, &c. For in every case where he to whom the release is made hath the freehold in deed, or in law, at the time of the release, &c., there the release is good.

$449. Also, in some cases of releases of all the right, albeit that he to whom the release is made hath nothing in the freehold in deed nor in law, yet the release is good enough. As if the disseisor letteth the land which hee hath by disseisin to another for terme of his life, saving the reversion to him, if the disseisee or his heire release to the disseisor all the right, &c., this release is good, because hee to whom the release is made had in law a reversion at the time of the release made.

$ 450. In the same manner it is, where a lease is made to a man for terme of life, the remainder to another for terme of another man's life, the remainder to the third in taile, the remainder to the fourth in fee, if a stranger which hath right to the land releaseth all his right to any of them in the remainder, such release is good, because everie of them hath a remainder in deed vested in him.

S451. But if the tenant for terme of life be disseised, and afterward he that hath right (the possession being in the disseisor) releaseth to one of them to whom the remainder was made all his right, this release is void, because hee had not a remainder in deed at the time of the release made, but only a right of a remainder.

$459. Also, if a man letteth to another his land for terme of yeares, if the lessor release to the lessee all his right, &c., before that the lessee had entred into the same land by force of the same lease, such release is void, for that the lessee had not possession in the land at the time of the release made, but only a right to have the same land by force of the lease. But if the lessee enter into the land, and hath possession of it by force of the said lease, then such release made to him by the feoffor, or by his heire, is sufficient to him by reason

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