TENANT-IN-TAIL. The origin and general nature of estates tail have been already described. [ESTATE; REMAINDER; SETTLE.MEN'T.] The estate of the tenant-in-tail has some essential characteristics. Ho has a right to commit waste of all kinds by felling timber, pulling down houses, opening mines, and doing other like acts; and this right of the tenant-in-tail cannot in any manner be restrained. The tenant in-tail is also entitled to the custody of the title-deeds, which the Court of Chancery will order to be delivered up to him. He is not bound to pay off incumbrances affecting the fee of the estate, as he has only a particular interest, and not the entire property in the land ; and it seems that he is not in general even bound to keep down the interest on such ineumbranees; though if he do pay off such incumbrances, it will in general be presumed to have been done in exoneration of the estate.
By the statute De Donis the tenant-in-tail was restrained from alien ating his estate in any manner for a longer period than his own life, that is to say, the estate of the alienee, though not ipso facto deter mined by the death of the tenant-in-tail, became thereupon defensible by his issue or the remainder-man or reversioner.
If the tenant-in-tail conveyed his estate by lease and release, cove nant to stand seised, or bargain and sale and grant, the right of entry of the issue and remainder-men was not affected by the conveyance. But a feoffment or fine made or levied by the tenant-in-tail in posses sion by virtue of the entail, caused what was called a discontinuance of the. estate tail, whereby the issue and the persona in remainder and reversion loot their rights of entry and were driven to their action. A fine duly levied with proclamations was an absolute bar to the issue, though not to the remainder-men, creating what was called a base fee; and by means of a common recovery duly suffered, the tenant-in-tail might bar his issue and all the remainders over, and make an absolute conveyance of the estate. [Itecovenv.]
By the 3 & 4 Wm. IV., c. 74, fines and recoveries were abolished ; and by the Statute of Limitations (3 & 4 Wm. IV., c. 27) it was enacted " that no discontinuance or warranty should thereafter defeat any right of entry or action for the recovery of land. It seems therefore that no discontinuance, properly so called, can now be produced by any mode of conveyance, for, whatever may be the form of discontin uance, the last-mentioned statute takes away its effect. [FtNe; It woven's%] In accordance with the principle which prevented a tenant-in-tail from alienating his estate for more than his own lifetime, leases by tenants-in-tail might be avoided after their death by the issue in tail. But by the 32 Hen. VIIL, c. 28, tenants-in-tail were enabled to make leases fur three lives or twenty-one years, which should bind their issue, though not the persons in remainder or the reversioner.
The estate of the tenant-in-tail Is not subject to any of the debts or inetnnbrances of his ancestor, except debts duo to the crown, by the 32 lien. c. 30, s. 75.
Estates tail are subject to the bankrupt laws, and to forfeiture for high treason by the 26 If en. VIII., c. 13. By attainder for high treason, the estate of the tenant-In-tail, of his issue, and of all such of his collateral heirs as would have been entitled to take under the estate tail, are forfeited, but not the estates in remainder or the reversion.
The 26 Hen. VIII. extends only to cases of high treason, and there fore as to felonies the atAtuto De Donis is still in force, and the for feiture by attainder for felony extends only to the life interest of the tenant-in-tail. (Co. Litt., 392 b.)