ASSIGNMENT. The term assign.. ment is in colloquial use in Scotland, but the word which supplies its place in legal nomenclature is assignation. In some instances, however, where statutes employing the phraseology of the Eng lish law have been extended to Scot land, the word assignment has neces sarily obtained a partial technical use in that part of the empire, e. g. in the trans ference of property in copyright, patents, and registered vessels. Assignations are a feature of considerable importance in the law of Scotland, both with reference to heritable or real, and to moveable pro perty. The definition of an assignation as distinguished from any other species of conveyance is, that it conveys not a thing, but a title to a thing. Thus a bill of exchange comes within the character of an assignation, because it is, or pro fesses to be, a conveyance in favour of the payee of a right in the person of the drawer to a suns due to him by the drawee. There is no rule known in the law of Scotland equivalent to that which affects the conveyance of a chose in action in England ; and except in those cases when from public policy, from the delectus per. soma involved in the obligation, or from some other special cause, a transferanee is invalid, ti right exigible by one person is capable of being made over by assign ation to another.
Assignations are of great importance in the conveyance of heritable or real pro perty. The old system of subinfeudation being still in operation in Scotland, a proprietor of heritable subjects whose right is indisputable, is frequently not in the position of having received feudal in vestiture from his superior. He is said in such a case to have a mere personal right, as holding in his hands the authority for making his title real by investiture.
This authority he transfers by assignation, and property is thus frequently passed through several bands by assignation be fore it is found expedient or necessary to complete the investiture. In conveyances of landed property such title-deeds as the party conveying has agreed to give to the party receiving, are transferred by assig nation. For assignations to leases see ASSIGNEE.
As the transfer of moveable property is completed by delivery, the person who has the possession cannot convey (as in the case of land) his right to the thing as separate from the thing itself; and thus an assignation affecting moveable property can only take place when it is in the hands of a third party. The simple act of assignation may be effectual in all questions between the cedent and the assignee, but to make the third party who holds the property in his hands responsible as holding it for the latter and not for the former, the further ceremony of a formal intimation is necessary ; and until such intimation be made, the cedent's creditors may attach the property in the hands of the holder. Presentment is the proper form of intimation in the case of a bill of exchange. In its most formal shape, an intimation of an assignation is made by the reading of the document to the debtor in presence of a notary and witnesses, and the evidence of the ceremony is the no tarial certificate ; but in the general case, other circumstances which put the fact of intimation beyond doubt, such as the debtor's admission of his liability to the assignee, are held as equivalents.