require skill and diligence, may be granted for years, because they may be executed by deputies, without any inconvenience to the public. Where one made a grant for years of the stewardship of a courtleet and court-baron, it was held void as to the court-leet, being a judicial office, but good as to the court-baron, being only ministerial, and the suitors judges thereof; but the grant appearing afterwards to be for years determinable upon the death of the lessee, it was held good for both, because there was no danger of its coming to executors or administrators. An office cannot be demised by parol (a). Dignities and honours cannot be granted for years. Franchises.-Franchises may be demised, except indeed in some few particular cases, as where the franchise is a personal immunity, &c. Thus a fair or market, either with or without the right of taking toll, either there or at any other public places, as at bridges, wharfs, or the like may be demised. Every fair is a market, but not è contra (b). Corrodies and Pensions.-Touching corrodies and pensions; the great endowments of lands, rents, and revenues, given to the churchmen by the laity, were for the maintenance of hospitality and works of charity the founders and benefactors thereby obtained a right of corrody or entertainment at such places, in nature of free quarter (c). A corrody therefore is a right of sustenance, or to receive certain allotments of food for one's maintenance; in lieu of which, especially when due from ecclesiastical persons, a pension or sum of money is sometimes substituted; and these are chargeable on the person of the owner of the inheritance in respect thereof. It is said, that a corrody may be due to a common person by grant from one to another. A corrody is either certain or uncertain, and may be not only for life or years, but in fee. If one hath a corrody for life, he may let it to another, or to the grantor himself (d). Annuities.— An annuity is an annual sum of money granted to another in fee, for life or years, which charges the person of the grantor only; or it may be due by prescription, which always implies a grant (e). Such annuity may be demised by way of assignment (ƒ). Rents. Rents form the last kind of incorporeal hereditaments, and may be the subject of a lease. The word rent, or render, reditus, signifies a compensation or return, it being in the nature of an acknowledgement given for the possession of some corporeal inheritance (g). There are at common law three manner of rents: rent-service, rent-charge, and rent-seck. Rent-service is so called because it hath some corporal service incident to it, as at the least fealty: for if a tenant hold his land by fealty, and ten shillings rent, or by service of ploughing the lord's land and five shillings rent, these pecuniary rents, being connected with personal services, are therefore called rentservice; and for these, in case they be behind or in arrear at the day appointed, the lord may distrain of common right, without reserving any special power of distress; provided he hath in himself the reversion, or future estate of the lands and tenements, after the lease or particular estate of the lessee or grantee is expired. A rent-charge is where the owner of the rent hath no future interest, or reversion expectant in the land: as where a man by deed maketh over to others his whole estate in fee-simple, with a certain rent payable thereout, and adds to the deed a covenant or clause of distress, that if the rent be in arrear, or behind, it shall be lawful to distrain for the same: in this case the land is liable to the distress, not of common right, but by virtue of the clause in the deed; and therefore it is called a rentcharge, because in this manner the land is charged with a distress for the payment of it (a).-A clear rent-charge must be free from the land-tax (b). If a rent-charge be granted out of a lease for years, it hath been adjudged that the grantee may bring annuity when the lease is ended (c). Rent-seck or barren rent, idem est quod reditus siccus, is in effect nothing more than a rent reserved by deed, but without any clause of distress (a). There are also other species of rents, which are reducible to the following three. Rents of assize, which are the certain established rents of the freeholders and ancient copyholders of a manor, and which cannot be departed from: those of the freeholders are frequently called chief-rents, reditus capitales, and both sorts are indifferently denominated quit-rents, quieti reditus; because thereby the tenant goes quit and free of all other services. Rack-rent is only a rent of the full value of the tenement or near it (d). A fee-farm rent is a rent-charge or rent-service, which is reserved on a grant in fee; the name is founded on the perpetuity of the rent or service, not on the quantum (a). This point however is questioned, though as Mr. Hargrave's seems to us to be the better opinion, we have adopted it. Vide Doug. 605. A grant of lands therefore reserving so considerable a rent, was indeed only letting lands to farm in fee-simple instead of the usual (a) 2 Bl. Com. 41-43. (6) Bradbury v. Wright. Doug, 624-628. (c) Fulwood v. Ward. Moor, 301. terms for life or years (a). Since the statute of quia emptores, Westm. 18 Ed. 1. st. 1. it seems such grants by any subject cannot be made, because the grantor parting with the fee is by operation of that statute without any reversion, and without a reversion there cannot be a rentservice (b). If the reservation be of corn, as in the case of an hospital renewed lease, where the reddendum was " so many quarters of corn," it will be understood to mean legal quarters, reckoning the bushel at eight gallons; although the old leases before the statute 22 and 23 Car. 2. c. 12. contained the same reddendum, and although till lately the lessees paid by composition, reckoning the bushel at nine gallons (c). These are the general divisions of rent; and the difference between them (in respect of the remedy for recovering them) is now totally abolished by stat. 4 G. 2. c. 28.; as all persons may have the like remedy by distress for rents-seck, rents of assise, and chief-rents, that is for such as had been paid for three years, within twenty years before the passing that act, or for such as have been since created, as in case of rents reserved upon lease (d). Statute 12 C. 2. c. 24. s. 5. provides that nothing therein contained shall be construed to take away any rents certain, or other service, incident or belonging to tenure in common socage, or the fealty and distress incident thereunto; and that such relief shall be paid in respect of such rents as is paid in case of a death of a tenant in com mon socage. Occasionally also, acts of parliament empower the officers of government to grant leases of the duties thereby imposed; as the act 12 C. 2. c. 23. s. 27. respecting the duties of excise upon ale, beer, &c. and also c. 25. s. 3. of the same reign, &c. (a) 2 Bl. Com. 41-43. (6) Fulwood v. Ward. Moor. 301. (c) The Master of St. Cross Hospital v. Ld. Howard. 6 T. R. 338. (d) 3 Bl. Com. 43. CHAPTER VI. For what Term Leases may be made. SECTION I. Of Terms for Life, and how created. SECTION II. Of Terms for Years, absolutely or on condition, wherein of the commencement, duration, and termination of them; and of the surrender and renewal of Leases. SECTION I. Of Terms for Life, and how created. HERE a lease is granted for life, it confers a freehold interest in land; the duration of which is confined to the life or lives WHERE of some particular person or persons, or to the happening, or not happening, of some uncertain event (a). But a demise for the term of a life or lives, requires to be perfected by livery of seisin; and the assignments of leases for lives are commonly made by lease and release, If lands are demised or granted to a man generally, without denoting the quantity of estate intended to be given, and livery be made upon it, such demise or grant to another generally, by tenant in fee, shall be an estate to the lessee for his own life; for his life is greater in consideration of law than another's life; and therefore if he lease to him in remainder or reversion for his life, he shall have it after the death of the lessee, for it was not a surrender: but if it be by tenant in tail, it shall be for the life of the lessor: for that is all he can lawfully grant, unless he lease according to the stat. 32 H. 8. c. 28 (6). So, a demise to another for a time indeterminate, passes for life, if livery be made (b). Or a demise of things which lie in grant, without livery (6). Estates for life granted absolutely, will, generally speaking, endure as long as the life for which they were granted (c). But there are some estates for life which may determine upon future contingencies before the life for which they are granted expires; as where a lease is to a man quamdiu se bene gesserit; to a woman durante viduitate or dum sola; to husband and wife during coverture; to A. as long as he inhabits, or pays such rent, or till he be preferred to such a benefice, or till out of the profits he has paid 100l, or other sum, or during his exile, if he be absent from his country voluntarily, and not by edict. In these and such like cases the duration of the estate depends merely upon the condition (b). So if the king grant an office at will, and a rent for it for his life, the grantee has an estate for life in the rent, though it determines with his office (b). But if one make a lease for life, and say that if the lessee within one year pay not 205. he shall have but a term for two years; by this if he do not pay the money, he has only a lease for two years, even though livery of seisin be made upon it (d). But where a person devises lands to his executors for payment of his debts and until his debts are paid, although the determination of such estate be uncertain, yet it is not an estate for life; for if it were, it must determine at the death of the executors, which would frustrate the intention of the testator, for all the debts might not be then paid the law therefore gives the executors a chattel interest, which will go to their executors, and continue until all the testator's (a) Crus. Dig. Estate for Life. (b) Com. Dig. tit. Estates. (E. 1.) and Co. Lit, 412. &c. (c) 2 Bl. Com. 121. debts are paid, and the freehold and inheritance will descend in the mean time to the heir. But if a limitation of this kind were made by deed, it is a freehold conditional (a). Of Livery of Seisin.-Livery by the common law, is necessary to be made upon every grant of an estate of freehold in hereditaments corporeal, whether of inheritance or for life only. Livery of seisin is either in deed or in law. Livery in deed is thus performed: the lessor, or his attorney, together with the lessee, or his attorney, (for this may as effectually be done by deputy or attorney, as by the principals themselves in person,) come to the land, or to the house, and there, in the presence of witnesses, declare the contents of the lease on which livery is to be made. Then the lessor, if it be of land, delivers to the lessee, all other persons being out of the ground, a clod, or turf, or a twig, or bough, there growing, with words to this effect, "I deliver these to you in the name of seisin of all the lands and tenements contained in this deed." But if it be of a house, the lessor must take the ring, or latch of the door, the house being quite empty, and deliver it to the lessee in the same form, as in the case of land: and then the lessee must enter alone, and shut to the door, and then open it, and let in the others. If the conveyance be of divers lands, lying scattered in one and the same county, and then in the lessor's possession, livery of seisin of any parcel in the name of the residue is sufficient for all; but if they be in several counties, there must be as many liveries as there are counties; for if the title to these lands. come to be disputed, there must be as many trials as there are counties, and the jury of one county are no judges of the notoriety of a fact in another. Also, if the lands be out on lease, though all lie in the same county, there must be as many liveries as there are tenants ; because no livery can be made in this case, but by the consent of the particular tenant, and the consent of one will not bind the rest.—In all these cases, it is prudent and usual to endorse the livery of seisin on the back of the deed, specifying the manner, place, and time of making it, together with the names of the witnesses (b). Livery in law is where the same is not made on the land, but in sight of it only; the lessor saying to the lessee, "I demise, grant, and to farm let, such land unto you, enter and take possession (b).” Here if the lessee enter during the life of the lessor, it is a good livery, but not otherwise; unless indeed he dare not enter through fear of his life, or bodily harm; and then his continual claim made yearly in due form of law, as near as possible to the lands, will suffice without entry; and such continual claim by tenant for life is sufficient for him in reversion or remainder. This livery in law can (4) Cruise's Dig. tit. 3. s. 8. 1 Inst. 42. a. Cordial's Case. Cro. Eliz. 315. Carter v. Barnardiston. I P. Wms. 505-509. |