Forwarded to the list: ----- Original Message ----- From: <eve@varneys.org.uk> To: "Polly Rubery" <polly@rowberry.org>; <old-english-bounces@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2009 3:49 AM Subject: Re: [OEL] Old documents |> Hi All | > | > One of my FH students has sent me the following query: | > | > >>I have come across a document in the course of my research which is | > >>entitled :- | > | > "Release to make tenants to precipe to suffer a Recovery" | | Basically, A has agreed to sell the premises to B, and the money is | probably even now with the stakeholders. A, while in control of the | premises, is the tenant (holder, not rent-payer) and he is dragging his | feet about getting on with the necessary legal manouevres. This is to | make him shift right away. | The method of transfer chosen is a Common Recovery. | B claims that the property is his and his ancestors' before him and | that A and his kin have withheld it illegally. A says nonsense, it is ours | and my witnesses Richard Roe and John Doe will back me up. | Steward says, right, bring them into court to say so. As there ain't no | sich persons, A fails to do so, and the property is judged to have | belong to B all the time | Sounds complicated, but it avoided some of the paperwork and legal | fees to the Crown. | While the process is going on, C and D hold the purchase price and | only pay it over when the Recovery has gone through. They get a few | shillings each for their trouble. (Nowadays, solicitors hold the money | and similarly drag their feet over completing the job). |

The creation of a 'Release to make a Tenant to Precipe to suffer a Recovery' doesn't suggest that the vendor of the property was dragging his heels - a conveyance of this sort was the standard and essential first step in any Common Recovery, and would have been entered into in every case, probably just as soon as the parties had agreed to proceed with the transaction and to do it by means of a Common Recovery. The procedure, agreed in advance between all the parties, was as follows: 1. the owner/vendor of the land conveyed the land to a friend, called the 'tenant' (this was the 'conveyance to make a Tenant to the Precipe'). 2. The purchaser then sued the tenant claiming the land. 3. The tenant then brought the owner into the lawsuit, claiming compensation from him if it turned out the land had to be given up to the plaintiff/purchaser (technically this was called 'vouching the owner', which is why the owner is often called the vouchee). 4. The owner/vouchee in turn brought a fourth person into the suit, claiming, completely untruthfully, that he (the owner) had acquired the land from this fourth person (the 'common vouchee'). This fourth person would often be a junior court official. 5. The common vouchee would then fail to defend the case (perhaps by quite literally leaving the courtroom), and so the plaintiff/purchaser would win his case, getting a court order that he owned the land. This was commonly done where there was some problem with the owner/vendor's title - perhaps it was entailed - because the court order that the property belonged to the purchaser overrode the title problem. Matt Tompkins ----- Original Message ----- From: <eve@varneys.org.uk> To: "Polly Rubery" <polly@rowberry.org>; <old-english-bounces@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2009 3:49 AM Subject: Re: [OEL] Old documents |> Hi All | > | > One of my FH students has sent me the following query: | > | > >>I have come across a document in the course of my research which is | > >>entitled :- | > | > "Release to make tenants to precipe to suffer a Recovery" | | Basically, A has agreed to sell the premises to B, and the money is | probably even now with the stakeholders. A, while in control of the | premises, is the tenant (holder, not rent-payer) and he is dragging his | feet about getting on with the necessary legal manouevres. This is to | make him shift right away. | The method of transfer chosen is a Common Recovery. | B claims that the property is his and his ancestors' before him and | that A and his kin have withheld it illegally. A says nonsense, it is ours | and my witnesses Richard Roe and John Doe will back me up. | Steward says, right, bring them into court to say so. As there ain't no | sich persons, A fails to do so, and the property is judged to have | belong to B all the time | Sounds complicated, but it avoided some of the paperwork and legal | fees to the Crown. | While the process is going on, C and D hold the purchase price and | only pay it over when the Recovery has gone through. They get a few | shillings each for their trouble. (Nowadays, solicitors hold the money | and similarly drag their feet over completing the job). | ==================================== WEB PAGE: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ ARCHIVES: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to OLD-ENGLISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message