Fee tail
| Property law |
|---|
| Part of the common law series |
| Types |
| Acquisition |
| Estates in land |
| Conveyancing |
| Future use control |
| Nonpossessory interest |
| Related topics |
| Other common law areas |
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Higher category: Law and Common law |
Fee tail or entail is a legal concept and set of associated rules restricting the manner in which real property (especially land) passes from one generation to the next; these rules tend to keep deceased estates together as a whole, and in the hands of a single owner (heir), rather than allowing them to be split up amongst multiple children (as would tend to happen in similar situations in Continental European law). Entail has been known in English law since feudal times, and it has evolved as the law has evolved. It is concerned with heirship, ensuring the male line and preserving intergenerationally its power and ownership of property. As Lawrence Stone has argued, a key element is psychological: a strong attachment by those involved to the principle of preferential male primogeniture.
Two main phases may be identified:
- the "feudal" form, which was first attempted to be curbed by the Statute of Westminster 1285 and in which the entail could be barred (in England but not in Scotland) from the fifteenth century onwards by common recovery;
- the modern form, based on evolving trust law from the seventeenth century onwards. This used strict settlement and was brought to an end by the Settled Lands Acts 1882 to 1890.