History of Real Estate Law: The Old English Landholding System

[Nostalgia]

United Kingdom Legal Information Centre

English real-estate law was imported, through colonization, into the earlier forms of law in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Many of these states, or their territories, have since modified this historical law, to varying degrees. A study of the old feudal land system of England provides us with an invaluable glimpse of legal history regulating the most valuable asset of them all: land. In medieval times, land was the sole form of wealth.

Land ownership in ancient England, as with most objects, depended primarily on possession. You had it, you owned it. You wanted it, you fought for it. You found it, you kept it. There were no courts or police force ready to recognize or enforce "legal rights" as we know them today.

All this changed with the conquest of England in 1066 by the Norman conquest. William decreed that he owned all of the land in England by right of conquest. Not one acre of England was to be exempted from this massive expropriation. This sudden vacuum of privately-held land was promptly filed by a variety of huge land grants given by the new King to either his Norman officers or to those of the English who were ready to recognize him as king.

The underlying principle of the system was that nobody owned land but the king. The expressions dominion directum and dominion utile are often used to describe the relative ownership of king and lords; the former as landlord the latter as tenant.

This represents a significant difference between real estate and chattels. Chattels can be owned outright. It can also be contrasted with those countries that have an allodial system (absolute ownership of land). Even today, in those countries that have inherited the tenurial system, all land belongs to the Crown; persons only own an estate in the land.

The device used by the king to control and administer his land was that of tenure. Tenure was the key component of the feudal system. The king struck a bargain with a lord for a large chunk of land. The lords that held their tenure directly from the king were called tenants-in-chief or in capite.

After the conquest of 1066, it was this group of persons who formed the basis of English aristocracy and began, by the process of subletting the king's land, the implementation of the feudal system. A lord would contract with commoners, to whom he would sub-grant the exclusive possession and use of part of the royal tenure in exchange for goods or services. This subdivision of the king's land was known as subinfeudation and a long chain of tenure took root, with the king always being at the head of the chain. Significant rules of feudal law relating to the rights and obligations of lords and tenants can be found in the 1215 Magna Carta.

The tenures granted by the king and lords were exchanged for a wide variety of goods or services such as Knight service (the tenant agreeing to serve as a knight in the king or lord's army) or "free and common socage", which referred to service or goods other than those military. A good example is the provision of a certain amount of food from a tenant's annual crop. Religious bodies could also hold land from a lord, in exchange for prayers; this was called "frankalmoigne" or "free alms."

Tenure also implied a series of incidental obligations. A tenant was required to take an oath of "fidelity" to the lord. This solemn ceremony formed the basis for the legal relationship between the lord and the tenant. The lord was entitled to emergency taxes when for example, he was kidnapped, to pay the ransom. The lord was allowed to insist from a tenant's eldest son, as heir of the tenure, on a special estate tax called "relief" to effect the transfer of responsibilities. If the tenant died with an infant son as heir, the land went into wardship. If the heir was female, the lord could veto the marriage of the woman. See the text of the 1215 Magna Carta for more on these incidents.

The most important of the incidents is the concept of "escheat" which allowed the land to revert back to the lord. There were two causes for escheat. The first was the death without heirs of the tenant. The second was the conviction of the tenant of a felony. The loss of one's land, not only for oneself but also for one's heirs, led to a cruel and unusual punishment called peine forte et dure (see discussion in The Law's Hall of Horrors). A person pleading guilty to a felony lost his land to the lord. But if he died without a plea, the next of kin remained eligible to claim the property by paying relief as discussed above.

The system changed somewhat in 1290, when the Statute Quia Emptores was passed to prohibit further subinfeudation and allowing tenants to sell their rights without requiring the prior consent of the lord. From this point on, the number of tenures was frozen except that the king was exempt from the Statute and he could grant additional tenures. Eventually, incidents were prohibited and socage of all kind were eliminated and replaced only by free and common variety.

Tenures were of a variety of duration known as "estates":

* The fee simple estate was the most extensive and allowed the tenant to sell or to convey by will or be transferred to the tenant's heir if he died intestate. In modern law, almost all land is held in fee simple and this is as close as one can get to absolute ownership in common law.
* Fee tail estate meant that the tenure could only be transferred to a lineal descendant. If there were no lineal descendants upon the death of the tenant, the land reverted back to the lord.
* The life estate was granted only for the life of the tenant, after which it reverted automatically to the lord.

It was in this context that the British began their dominion over the seas and their explorations which led to the modern nations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America. To a varying degree, the laws of these countries part company with the old English land system and on different dates. Although imposed on the colonies to start with, colonial laws quickly changed the essence of it such that the laws of all these countries are similar only to the extent of their origin in old English land-ownership law. Major legislative changes in England 1926 did not affect the law of many former colonies who, as separate states, had already accepted or rejected remnants of old English land ownership law.

But one aspect that does remain is that land titles in the older British colonies, can usually be traced back to the point of ownership by the British sovereign.

http://www.wwlia.org/LegalResources/...ng-System.aspx

[Nostalgia]

WHO OWNS THE WORLD

The Hidden Facts Behind Landownership



By Kevin Cahill
December 2006,
Who Owns the World is a breathtaking tome of huge political, economic and social importance. It
will revolutionise our understanding of our planet, its history and its land.
An incredible work of research, seven years in the making, Who Owns The World is the first ever
compilation of landowners and landownership structures in every single one of the world’s 197
states and 66 territories. It covers the history of landownership as far as written history will allow
and shows the division of landownership in every region of the globe.
Packed with revelatory information, Who Owns The World reveals the largest landowner on earth.
Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is
the legal owner of approximately 6,600 million acres of land. That equals one sixth of the earth’s
non-ocean surface. She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns
countries that are not her own domestic territory. This land ownership is separate from her role as
head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made, such as
Norway, Belgium and Denmark.
The value of Elizabeth II’s holdings is approximately £17,600,000,000,000. This makes her the
richest individual on earth. However, there is no way to easily value her real estate. There is no
current market in the land of entire countries. At a rough estimate of $5,000 an acre, and based on
the sale of Alaska to the USA by the Tsar, and of Louisiana to the USA by France, the Queen’s
land holding is worth a notional $33,000,000,000,000 (Thirty three trillion dollars or about
£17,600,000, 000,000 trillion pounds). Her holding is based on the laws of the countries she owns
and her land title is valid in all the countries she owns. Her main holdings are Canada, the 2nd
largest country on earth, with 2,467 million acres, Australia, the 7th largest country on earth with
1,900 million acres, Papua New Guinea with 114 million acres, New Zealand with 66 million acres
and the UK with 60 million acres.
The next 5 largest landholdings
The Queen is the world’s largest landowner by a significant margin. The next largest landowner is
the Russian state, with an overall ownership of 4,219 million acres, and a direct ownership
comparable with the Queen’s land holding of 2,447 million acres. The 3rd largest landowner is the
Chinese state, which claims all of Chinese land - about 2,365 million acres. The 4th largest
landowners on earth is the Federal Government of the United States which owns about one third of
the land of the USA - 760 million acres. The fifth largest landowner one earth is the King of Saudi
Arabia with 553 million acres.
The 5 largest personal landholdings on earth.
Queen Elizabeth II 6,600 million acres
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia 553 million acres
King Bhumibol of Thailand 126 million acres
King Mohammed IV of Morocco 113 million acres
Sultan Quaboos of Oman 76 million acres
The estimates of the Queen’s landholdings, which have immense political, legal and economic
implications, appear in Kevin Cahill’s book Who Owns the World. The book examines land
ownership in each one of the world’s 197 states or countries and 66 major territories, with a page
for each country and territory. (Part 2) It is the first such survey of landownership ever attempted
and includes estimates of the land owned by the Papacy, the Islamic Mosque trusts and the
Buddhist and Hindu religions (chapter 5). It examines the land holdings of the 26 largest
landholders on earth (chapter 3) and of how 60% of Europe is owned by the aristocracy, who also
get 60% of the EU annual agricultural subsidy of Euros 28,000 million (total subsidy $48,000
million)
About the Author
Kevin Cahill was born in Rathdowney, Co. Laois, in the Irish Republic, and now lives in Devon, in
the UK, with his wife, Ros. They have three grown-up daughters. A former army officer, Kevin has
worked in the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Irish Parliament and the European
Parliament as an advisor and researcher. He is the author of a number of books on business, trade
and landownership and was a researcher on the original Sunday Times Rich List. He detailed the
European wealthy for the Merril Lynch-CAP Gemini ‘World Wealth Report 2002’ and compiled
EuroBusiness’s list of the ‘200 Richest Women in the world 2001’. He was educated at Rockwell
College and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He has an honours degree in English
literature, is a qualified systems analyst and is a working journalist.
For further information, please contact Ally Cohilj
acohilj@randomhouse.com.au or 02 8923 9851


http://www.randomhouse.com.au/Downlo...%20Release.pdf

[Knight of the Word]

They pay no taxes on it either, I would wager what a racket.

[Nostalgia]

Remember lads, for Queen and country!



Who benefits eh?