A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON FINES AND RECOVERIES, IN THE Court of Common Pleas ; WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING THE RULES AND ORDERS OF COURT RELATING TO FINES AND RECOVERIES: AND A Copious Collection of Precedents of the several Proceedings IN LEVYING, SUFFERING, And perfecting them. BY WILLIAM HANDS, GENT. THE FOURTH EDITION, CORRECTED; AND CONSIDERABLY ALTERED AND ENLARGED. LONDON: JOSEPH BUTTERWORTH AND SON, 43, FLEET-STREET. 1825. ADVERTISEMENT TO THIS FOURTH EDITION. THE Third Edition of this Work having been some time out of print, and a new one required, considerable pains have been taken to render the present Edition more correct and useful. The whole of the Treatise has been remodelled, and a large addition of matter introduced without increasing the actual size of the book. As it is professedly designed to be of practical utility, a more copious statement has been given of the cases relating to the amendment of Fines and Recoveries, and the Rules and orders of Court, regulating the mode of levying and suffering them, have been substituted for several of the forms which appeared redundant in the former Editions. It is presumed that, upon the whole, the book will be found to describe more clearly the several stages through which Fines and Recoveries have to be passed, from their commencement to their completion; and at the same time to contain a more comprehensive account of the nature and operation of those important records of title to real property, forming a compendium of information to the younger student, which he may amplify with advantage from the more elaborate Treatises upon the subject which are extant. London, Trinity Vacation, 1825. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. ALTHOUGH there are annually some hundreds of Fines levied and Recoveries suffered in the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster; yet, it not having appeared to the Compiler that any of the books of practice, or treatises on Fines and Recoveries, shew sufficiently the modern practice of passing them, he conceived the pointing out the present mode of levying the one and suffering the other would assist the junior practitioner, and enable him to conduct with ease and accuracy this part of his business. Indeed, the inconvenience which the Compiler himself felt, not only during his clerkship, but also in the early part of his practice as an agent, and otherwise, for want of such a directory, induced him to attempt the elucidation of the subject in the following sheets; and should it prove in the least degree useful to any part of that branch of the Profession of which he himself is a member, he will have arrived at the end he aimed at. But here he cannot refrain |