Conveyance

Conveyance, Conveyancing. A conveyance is a deed or document by which property is conveyed from one person to another, whether by grant, assignment, appointment, lease, settlement, or otherwise. Conveyances of real property operate either according to the rules of common law or under the "Statute of Uses." The most important statute as regulating the present system of conveyancing is the "Conveyancing and Law of Property Act, 1881" (44 and 45 Vict. c. 41), the principal object of which was to shorten deeds by several enactments, which prescribe that certain general words, covenants, and conditions theretofore used by conveyancers in the preparation of deeds should be implied by virtue of the Act, unless the parties stipulate to the contrary. Short forms of statutory mortgage transfer and reconveyance are scheduled in this Act, also short forms of mortgage, further charge, conveyance on sale, and marriage settlement. The "Solicitors' Remuneration Act" of the same year brings into use an entirely novel mode of remunerating solicitors for conveyancing business, the same being by way of commission upon the amount of purchase-money or rent, etc. Both Acts were originally introduced by Lord Cairns. The former Act also contains important provisions against forfeitures of leases, the powers and duties of mortgagors, mortgagees, trustees, and executors, the management of the property of married women and infants, and the recovery and redemption of rent-charges, and it sanctions the residue of long terms, i.e. a residue of not less than 200 years of a term originally created for not less than 300 years, to be converted into a fee simple.