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Concept
Use (law)
Summary
Use, as a term in the property law of common law countries, amounts to a recognition of the duty of a person to whom property has been conveyed for certain purposes, to carry out those purposes. In this context "use" is equivalent to "benefit".
Uses were equitable or beneficial interests in land. In early law a property owner could not dispose of his estate by will nor could religious houses acquire it. As a method of avoiding certain common law rules, the practice arose of making feoffments to the use of, or upon trust for, persons other than those to whom the seisin or legal possession was delivered, to which the equitable jurisdiction of the chancellor gave effect. The Statute of Uses was passed in 1536 in an attempt to remedy the abuses which it was said were occasioned by this evasion of the law. However, the Statute failed to accomplish its purpose.
One reason for the creation of uses was a desire to avoid the strictness of certain rules of the common law, which considered seisin to be all-important. Although the common law recognised a use in chattels from an early period, it was clear by the end of the 14th century that land law had no room for this notion. Uses, nonetheless, satisfied contemporary needs in 15th century England. Their first application in relation to land was to provide land to Franciscan friars, who were pledged to vows of poverty and could not own land. Instead, a proprietor could enfeoff (grant) land to a proxy tenant for the friars' use as cestuis que (intended beneficiaries). The law recognised the proxy as the landholder, while the friars used the land as his guests.
Uses served various purposes, including:
Substitute of wills: Before the Statute of Wills 1540, a tenant in fee simple could not devise the interest in the land by a will at common law. Upon his death the land devolved upon his eldest son or, if he died without leaving an heir, the land would escheat (revert) to his overlord.
Official source
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