What are franchises, and what are the various kinds?

Franchises are a royal privilege or licence by the Crown's prerogative subsisting in the hands of a subject; they are held by grant or prescription.

The various kinds are

(i.) Fairs, markets, and ferries arising by (1) Act of Parliament; (2) royal grant; (3) prescription.

(ii.) Forest, chase, park, warren, and fishery.

What is a forest?

It is a grant of the assured royal right to devote a certain territory to the keeping of wild beasts and fowls of forest, &c., with the liberty of freely hunting and killing them, together with the right of protecting it, by right of the forest law.

It is capable of being vested in a subject by Crown grant, and it differs from the before described incorporeal hereditaments in that it is a right which the owner may have either in his own lands or those of another.

What is a chase?

The franchise of keeping certain kinds of wild animals within a particular district, with the exclusive right of hunting them. When belonging to a subject it must have been created by royal grant.

What is a park and a free warren ?

A park is simply a chase enclosed, save that you cannot have a park over another man's grounds. A free warren is a franchise to have and keep certain beasts and fowls of warren within the limits of a specified district. It must be granted by the Crown to a subject.

What is a free fishery?

It is the exclusive right of fishing in a public river or arm of the sea. It is a royal franchise held under the grant from the Crown either express or presumed, as by prescription. The bed of the river belongs to the Crown, the fishing to the public. There may be a particular right vested in a man and his heirs by prescription, but not any longer by royal grant, being prohibited by Magna Charta. This privilege differs from common of piscary in that the latter, which only exists in private rivers, may be granted by a private person, and he has no right in the fish till caught.

What are rents, and what are the various kinds?

Certain profits (reditus) issuing yearly out of lands and tenements corporeal. There are three kinds, viz., (i.) rent service; (ii) rent-charge; (iii.) rent seck.

What are the chief incidents of a rent?

(i.) It lies in render and not in prendre, like in corporeal

hereditaments.

(ii.) It must be of a certain amount.

(iii.) Payable periodically.

(iv.) Out of profits of the land.

(v.) It must issue out of hereditaments corporeal; and
(vi.) The payer must be the tenant.

Point out the chief distinctions in the above.

(i.) A rent service has some corporeal service incident to it,
as rent, fealty, &c., and it has as an incident a power
of distress.

(ii.) A rent-charge is an annuity charged on real estate, the
owner has neither fealty, seigniory, or reversion, but
power to distrain by force of an express contract.
(iii.) A rent seck was where no seigniory, reversion, or rights
of distress existed. But by 4 Geo. II. c. 28, a right
of distress is given. The two latter must be distin-
guished from an annuity, which, unless charged on
some real estate, is a yearly sum charged upon the
person of the grantor.

What was, until recently, the effect of a release of part of the hereditaments charged with an annuity or rent-charge, and what Act effected the change?

Formerly it released the whole of the property, but now only the particular part intended to be released (22 & 23 Vict. c. 35, s. 10). Are there any other kinds of rents?

There are also

(i.) Rents of assize, which are the certain established rents, of the freeholders and ancient copyholders of a manor, and cannot be departed from. Those of the freeholders were frequently called chief rents, and both are quit rents because the tenant went quit and free of all other services. They are rent service, and liable to distress.

(ii.) A rack rent where the rent is of the full value of the tenement or near it; and,

(iii.) A fee farm rent is where an estate in fee is granted subject to a rent in fee of at least one-fourth of the value of the lands, called a "fee farm" because it was said to be only letting the fee simple to farm by this

method.

Explain the meaning of "rack rent," "reck-seck," and a rentcharge respectively.

See last preceding answers.

How may rents be created? Give examples.

(i.) The owner may grant a rent out of the land; or (ii.) grant the land subject to the rent. Rent-charge or rent-seck arises by either of these modes; rent service only by the latter.

When and where is rent payable?

At any time between sunrise and sunset, though rent is not strictly due till midnight. In the case of a subject it is payable on the land, in the absence of any other place being reserved; where due to the Crown, at the Offices of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court, or to a receiver in the county, and, as we have before seen, rent is now, since 33 & 34 Vict. c. 35, apportionable. What are the various classes of incorporeal hereditaments, and some of their chief incidents?

(i.) They are either (1) appendant or (2) appurtenant, that
is to say, they are annexed to corporeal hereditaments,
in the first case, either from time immemorial, in the
second by grant or prescription, and (3) in gross, i.e.,
they exist, per se, separately and independently.
(ii.) Appendant and appurtenant pass with a grant of the
land, whether expressly mentioned or not.

(iii.) The same estates may be had in them as in corporeal
hereditaments, and they are subject to the same rules
of title.

(iv.) They cannot pass by feoffment, but by (1) grant; (2) reservation; (3) custom; and lastly by (4) prescription.

What is a title by prescription, and how does it differ from

custom?

It is where a man can show no other title to what he claims than that he and those under whom he claims have immemorially enjoyed it. It differs from custom therefore, in that prescription is a personal usage and custom a local one.

What were the common law rules with regard to a title by prescription?

(i.) The title is founded on actual usage.

(ii.) The enjoyment must have been constant and peaceable.
(iii.) The usage must have existed from time immemorial, of
which prescription a continuance of twenty years is
sufficient, or otherwise than by grant or licence.

(iv.) It must be certain and reasonable.

(v.) Either in a man and those whose estate he hath, or in a

man and his ancestors.

(vi.) A prescription in a que estate must always be laid in him

that is tenant in fee.

(vii.) A prescription cannot lie for a thing which cannot be raised by grant.

(viii.) That what is to arise by matter of record cannot be prescribed for; and

(ix.) A title by prescription does not confer that of purchaser. How have the rules by prescription been modified by statute? By 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 71, no right of common or other profit or benefit to be taken and enjoyed from or upon lands (except tithes, rents, and services), shall if actually enjoyed by any person claiming right thereto, without interruption for thirty years, be defeated by showing that it was first enjoyed subsequent to the era of legal memory, and if enjoyed for sixty years, the right is made absolute and indefeasible (i.e., in cases of disability of adverse party,) unless it shall appear that the same was taken and enjoyed, expressly made, or given for that purpose by deed or writing. With regard to rights of way and other easements, watercourses, and the use of water, the terms are twenty and forty years respectively, instead of thirty and sixty, and an uninterrupted enjoyment of lights for twenty years constitutes in every case an absolute and undefeasible right to them, any local usage or custom notwithstanding, unless it shall appear that the same was enjoyed by some consent or agreement expressly made or given by deed or writing; and there is provision that in the case of ways and watercourses where the servient tenement shall be held for life or a term exceeding three years, the time of enjoyment during such term is excluded from the forty years in the event of the person who may be entitled in reversion resisting the claim within three years after the term determines.

How may incorporeal hereditaments be extinguished?

(i.) By release, implied after a disuse for twenty years. (ii.) By unity of seisin, except in the case of franchises; but even here it may be effected in case of reunion with Crown or forfeiture for their misuse or nonuser. (iii.) In the case of lights and watercourses by absolute abandonment or disuse.

Mention one of the ways in which an incorporeal hereditament, such as a right of way or common over another's lands, may be extinguished?

By release; as when a person entitled to common releases it to the owner of the soil over which it is claimed.

PROTECTION

CHAPTER XXIV.

OF PURCHASERS AND MORTGAGEES AGAINST INSECURE TITLES BY MEANS OF REGISTRATION OF TITLE TO LAND.

What were the principal provisions of 25 & 26 Vict. c. 53.

This was "An Act to facilitate the proof of title to and the conveyance of real estates." It established an office of Land Registry, and contained provisions for the official investigation of titles, and for the registration of such as appeared good and marketable. It has, however, now been superseded by the Land Tranfer Act of 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 87).

State the principal provisions of 25 & 26 Vict. c. 67.

This Act is intituled an Act for obtaining a declaration of title, and it does not appear to be repealed, though seldom used. It empowers every person entitled to apply for the registration of an indefeasible title under 25 & 26 Vict. c. 53, i.e., persons claiming to be entitled to land in possession for an estate in fee simple, (copyholds and customaryholds are excluded), or claiming power to dispose of such estates, to apply to the Court of Chancery by petition in a summary way for a declaration of title. The title is then investigated by the Court, and if the Court is satisfied that such a title is shown as it would have compelled an unwilling purchaser to accept, an order is made (on the conditions in the Act mentioned) that on some day not less than three months afterwards a declaration shall be made establishing the petitioner's title, unless cause is shown to the contrary; but no such order will be made until an affidavit of production of documents has been filed, or the non-production accounted for, and that all material facts have been disclosed. A copy of the order has to be served, deposited, and affixed as directed by the Act, and advertisements of such fact of so depositing such order inserted in such newspapers and on such days as the Court directs. Then, if no petition has been presented within the proper time, or has been refused, the Court will make the necessary declaration.

What statutes have been passed during the present reign with a view to the registration of the title to land? How far are such statutes respectively still in force? And what are the distinctive features of the scheme introduced by the last of such statutes?

(i.) 25 & 26 Vict. c. 53, “An Act to facilitate the proof of title to and the conveyance of real estates;" (ii.) 25 & 26 Vict. c. 67,