FREEHOLD, ESTATE OF (libe•em tenementum, frank tenement): Real estates in Eng lana in the present clay are divided into freehold and copyhold. By freehold property is meant all estates which owe no duty or service to any lord but the king. What are now known as estates of freehold were, under the feudal system, denominated frank tenements. They were field by the honorable tenure of knight's service .(q.v.) and free socage (q.v.), and might have been held either of the crown or of a subject. But the stat ute of (pia empto•es having abolished subinfeudatiou, all freehold estates, except those, which have been held of subjects since the time of Edward I., are now held of the crown. A freehold estate must be an estate in fee, in tail, or for life; all other estates in land, as estates for years, are called chattel interests. An estate of freehold could in general be created only by livery of sasine of feoffment (q.v.), By the doctrine of the feudal law, no person who had an estate of less duration than for his own life or for the life of another man, was considered to be a freeholder; and none but a freeholder was considered to have possession of the land. A tenant for years, etc., was regarded as
holding possession for the freeholder. The possession of the freeholder might; hol• ever, be defeated by the wrongful act of the tenant; for a transfer of possession or liv ery of sasine by the tenant would divest the freeholder and leave hint to his right of entry (q.v.). This effect of a fcoffment by wrong was abolished by 8 and 9 Viet. c, 106, s. 4. Before the time of Henry VI., all freeholders were entitled to vote on the election of a knight of the shire, as they still may for the appointment of coroner. But- by 8 Hen. VI, c. 7, the famous statute was passed which still in great measure regulates the county elections, and enacts that no freeholder shall vote whose freehold is not of the, value of at least 404. a year. By 2 Will. IV. c. 45, s. 18, this qualification is continued as to all freeholds of inheritance, and to freeholders for life in actual occupation, or who have acquired their lands by marriage, marriage settlement, devise, or promotion to any benefice or office.