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be executed on or before the day on which such assurance is made and must be enrolled at or before the time when the assurance is enrolled (y). A protector is not in a fiduciary position, and may therefore sell his consent (s).

The effect of barring an estate tail without the consent of the protector is to create a base fee. A base fee has all the incidents of an estate in fee simple except that it terminates at the same time as the original estate tail would have terminated. A base fee may, by deed enrolled, be turned into a fee simple by the person who would have been tenant in tail had the estate not been barred (a); the consent of the protector, if any, is requisite (b). If a base fee and the reversion or remainder in fee simple expectant thereon become united in the same person the base fee is thereupon enlarged into a fee simple (c).

Estates tail granted by the Crown in reward for service and estates tail after possibility of issue extinct cannot be barred (d); nor could they before the Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833 (e).

The provisions of the Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833, relating to the barring of entails extend to equitable as well as legal estates in freeholds. As regards copyholds where there is a custom to entail, the mode of barring the entail prescribed by the Act is by surrender, or, in the case of equitable estates, by deed or surrender; but the consent of the protector is still requisite. Entry on the court rolls within six calendar months after the deed is executed or the surrender takes place is substituted for enrolment (ƒ).

On the bankruptcy of a tenant in tail, the trustee in bankruptcy may deal with the estate of the bankrupt in the same manner as the bankrupt might have dealt with it (g).

A tenant in tail has the powers of a tenant for life under

(y) 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 74, ss. 42, 46. (2) Banks v. Le Despencer, 9 L. J. Ch. 185; 4 Jur. 601; 11 Sim. 508. (a) 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 74, ss. 1, 15. (b) Ibid. s. 34. (c) Ibid. s. 39.

(d) lbid. s. 18.

(e) 34 & 35 Hen. 8, c. 20.

(f) 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 74, ss. 50—54. (g) Ibid. ss. 56-73; The Bankruptcy Act, 1883 (46 & 47 Vict. c. 52), s. 56.

the Settled Land Acts notwithstanding that he may be restrained by Act of Parliament from barring or defeating his estate tail, and notwithstanding that the reversion is in the Crown, and notwithstanding that the possibility of issue in tail is extinct (g).

Although a tenant in tail may, by a sale under the Settled Land Act, bind the Crown, he cannot dispose of land purchased with money provided by Parliament in consideration of public services if restrained by statute from barring or defeating his estate tail (h).

A person entitled to a base fee has also the powers of a tenant for life although the reversion may be in the Crown, and so that the exercise by him of his powers binds the Crown (i).

In cases where the rights of a tenant in tail are barred under the Real Property Limitation Acts, 1833 or 1874, all persons whom the tenant in tail might have barred lose their rights (), and where time has begun to run against a tenant in tail, it will continue to run against persons whose rights such tenant in tail might have barred notwithstanding they may be under disability (); and where a tenant in tail has died, such persons can only recover within the time during which they might have recovered if they had continued to live (m). Where a tenant in tail has made an assurance which does not bar estates taking effect after or in defeasance of his estate tail, the rights of the remaindermen or reversioners will be barred twelve years after the earliest time when such assurance would have barred their rights had it then been executed by the person who would have been entitled to his estate tail. if such assurance had not been executed (n).

Estates tail are subject to dower in the same way as estates in fee simple, but in the case of women married after the 31st December, 1833, the dower may be barred by a declara

(g) 45 & 46 Vict. c. 38, s. 58 (1) (i) (vii).

(h) Ibid. s. 58 (1) (i).

(i) Ibid. s. 58 (1) (iii).

(k) 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 27, s. 21.

(1) Goodall v. Skerratt, 24 L. J. Ch. 323; 23 L. T. (O. S.) 6; 3 W. R. 152; 1 Jur. (N. S.) 57; 3 Drew. 216; 3 Eq. R. 295.

(m) 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 27, s. 22.
(n) 37 & 38 Vict. c. 57, s. 6.

tion by the husband against dower in a deed or will (o). Dower does not attach unless the wife might have had issue who could have inherited the fee tail (p); the right to it is lost by divorce. When issue is born alive capable of inheriting a husband is entitled to curtesy out of his wife's estate tail.

An estate tail cannot be disposed of by will. An estate in tail general or special descends in all respects like a fee simple, except that it is confined to the issue of the person or persons named. An estate in tail male descends only to male issue who trace their descent entirely through males, and an estate in tail female descends only to female issue who trace their descent entirely through females (2).

Notwithstanding the provisions of the Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833, purporting to exclude the jurisdiction of the Court with regard to specific performance of contracts in cases of disposition of lands by tenants in tail (r), the Court may decree specific performance of a contract for disentailment entered into by a tenant in tail (s).

See ENROLMENT-SETTLED LAND.

Requisitions.

1. The disentailing assurance recently executed by the vendor must be duly enrolled before completion of the conreyance to the purchaser.

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18 , Mrs. A. husband, who is

2. Under the limitations of the deed of became tenant in tail in possession. Her now entitled to an estate by the curtesy, must concur in the assurance to the purchaser; he must also, as protector of the settlement, consent to the disentailing assurance.

3. Evidence must be adduced to show that A. B., the late tenant in tail, died without issue.

(0) Dower Act, 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4,

c. 105), ss. 6, 7.

(p) Co. Litt. 31 a.

(9) Burton, s. 649.

(r) 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 74, s. 47. (s) Bankes v. Small, 36 Ch. D. 716; 56 L. J. Ch. 832; 57 L. T. 292; 35 W. R. 765.

4. Evidence must be furnished that the surrender and made to bar the entail created by the

admittance of 18

settlement of 18

were entered upon the court rolls within

six months after the surrender took place.

EQUITABLE ESTATES.

Equitable estates are, in general, subject to the same rules as legal estates, and descend in the same way. The equitable estates of married women are subject to their husbands' curtesy, but prior to the Dower Act, 1833 (s), the husband's equitable estates were not subject to dower.

Equitable estates are free from any technical rules which depend upon incidents of tenure, thus, an equitable contingent remainder will not fail for the want of a particular estate to support it. Again, an equitable estate or interest was not, prior to the 14th August, 1884, liable to escheat (†).

No formality was required before the Statute of Frauds to a declaration of trust, or to the transfer of an equitable. estate; but that statute provided that declarations of trust of lands, tenements, and hereditaments, including chattels real (u) and copyholds (~), should be proved by some writing signed by the person who is by law enabled to declare such trusts, or else they should be void (y). This does not apply to trusts arising by construction, implication, or operation of law (=).

A contract for sale binding both parties makes the vendor at once a trustee for the purchaser, and thus gives the equitable interest to the purchaser. The Statute of Frauds requires any contract relating to lands or any interest therein to be in writing signed by the party to be charged therewith (a).

(s) 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 105.

(1) Intestates' Estates Act, 1881 (47 & 48 Vict. c. 71).

(u) Forster v. Hale, 5 Ves. jun. 308; 4 R. R. 128.

(x) Withers v. Withers, Amb. 151. (y) 29 Car. 2, c. 3, s. 7.

(2) Ibid. s. 8.

(a) Ibid. s. 4.

All assignments of equitable interests are void unless in writing signed by the assignor (b).

A deed is necessary to convey an equitable interest in the case of a disentailing assurance under the Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833 (c), and equitable interests of married women, which must be conveyed by deed acknowledged under the Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833 (c), the Real Property Act, 1845 (d), or the Married Women's Reversionary Interests Act, 1857 (e).

Since no formality is necessary to the transfer of an equitable interest, an equity of redemption may be transferred by a binding agreement and a receipt for the purchase-money, so also a receipt for the mortgage money in the case of a mortgage of an equity of redemption is sufficient discharge without

any reconveyance.

If a bona fide purchaser for valuable consideration acquire a legal estate or interest in any property without notice of an equitable estate or interest, he will be entitled to retain the property free from the equitable estate or interest of which he had no notice. This rule is a great protection to a purchaser, and he should, in the absence of any circumstances appearing which give rise to suspicion, rely upon it and abstain from making any such requisition as-"Was the money which is stated to have belonged to the mortgagees on a joint account in fact trust money?"

Where trustees advance trust money on mortgage, it is the usual practice to keep off the title all reference to the trust. If, however, this course be not adopted a purchaser or transferee should require production of the settlement in order to satisfy himself that it contains nothing interfering with the power of the trustees to sell or transfer, as the case may be.

See EQUITABLE MORTGAGES-ESCHEAT MARRIED WOMEN-MORTGAGES-NOTICE-SETTLED LAND.

(b) 29 Car. 2, c. 3, s. 9. (c) 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 74.

(d) 8 & 9 Vict. c. 106, ss. 6, 7. (e) 20 & 21 Vict. c. 57.

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