Mortmain in United Kingdom

Meaning of Mortmain

The following is an old definition of Mortmain [1]: Originally, a purchase of land by any corporation, sole or aggregate, ecclesiastical or temporal. But these purchases having been chiefly made by religious houses, in consequence of which the lands became perpetually inherent in one “dead hand, ” occasioned the appellation to be applied to such alienations alone. The members of ecclesiastical bodies were at that time reckoned as ” dead ” in law. The statutes in England which prohibit corporations from taking lands by devise, even for chaiities, except in special cases, are called the Statutes of Mortmain, morrtua Tnanu, for the reason of which Sir Edward Coke offers many conjectures. The word now designates all prohibitory laws which limit, restrain, or annul gifts, grants, or devises of lands or other corporeal hereditaments to charitable uses. Amortize, or admortize. To alien lands in mortmain. whence (the word(s) which follow it are derivatives from the same root word) amortization, amortizement. By allowing lands to become vested in objects endowed, with perpetuity of duration, in former times, the lords were deprived of escheats and other feudal profits, and the general policy of the common law, which favored the free circulation of property, was frustrated, although the power of purchasing lands was incident to corporations. Numerous statutes restraining alienation in mortmain were passed, the effect of which was to deprive corporations of the power of acquiring realty without a general or particular license from the crown. These restraints were subsequently relaxed in particulars, including gifts for purposes of charity. The statute of 9 Geo. II (1736), c. 36, is known as- the Mortmain Act, by pre-eminence. The. English statutes have not been re-enacted in this country, except in Pennsylvania, where they have extended to prohibiting the dedication of property to superstitious uses, and to grants to corporations without a statutory license. See Charity.

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Notes and References

1. Concept of Mortmain provided by the Anderson Dictionary of Law (1889) (Dictionary of Law consisting of Judicial Definitions and Explanations of Words, Phrases and Maxims and an Exposition of the Principles of Law: Comprising a Dictionary and Compendium of American and English Jurisprudence; William C. Anderson; T. H. Flood and Company, Law Publishers, Chicago, United States)