ATTORNMENT, iit-thriement (for deriva tion, see ATTORNEY). The formal recognition, by a tenant, of the grantee of the freehold as his landlord. This doctrine, which has played an important role in the modern law of landlord and tenant, had its almost forgotten origin in the feudal system of land tenure, The intimate character of the relationship of lord and freehold tenant in this system required not only that the lord should choose his own tenant, but the cor relative right of the tenant to choose his own lord. The tenant was the first to gain the right to alienate his freehold, and thus to impose upon his lord a tenant, not of the latter's choice (Statute Quia Emptore%s, 18 Edw. I., A.D. 1290), but the right of the tenant to refuse his assent to the conveyance of the landlord's estate in the premises, and thus to render his grant ineffectual and incomplete, not only continued 400 years longer, but was extended by analogy to the com mon, non-feudal relations of landlord and tenant. Accordingly, it was the law of England and of the English colonies in America until the statute of 4 Anne, c. I G, A.D. 1705, that an owner of lands subject to a lease for life or years could not make an effectual grant of his reversion (q.v.), or estate as landlord, without the assent of the tenant in This assent might be mani fested by words, by agreement in writing, by the payment of rent or of a nominal sum, and was called an attornment, or turning to, submission to, the new landlord. Without such attorn rent the grantee of the reversion waA not entitled to the rents and services of the tenancy, nor could he enforce against the tenant any covenant or condition on which the lands were held. The
statute above referred to, however, dispensed with the necessity of attornment in all ordinary cases of conveyance of his estate by the landlord, making such conveyance good and effectual from its date, the tenant becoming ipso facto tenant of the grantee upon the terms of the existing lease, and such is now the law everywhere in the States.
Under the old law it was possible for a tenant, by attorning to a stranger, virtually to dispossess, or disseize, his landlord, and thus put him to an action to recover possession of his lands. This extraordinary and wrongful effect of an attornment was also done away with by the statute of Anne (sec. 10), and the tenant estopped to deny his landlord's title (see ESTOPPEL) , unless the attornment be made with the landlord's consent, or in consequence of a judgment or decree of a court, or to a mortagee after the mortgage has been forfeited. The ex ceptions are still a part of the law, and, under them, the doctrine of attornment is an important part of the modern law of landlord and tenant. It should be added that, though a tenant is, in the ordinary case of an alienation of the free hold by his landlord, no longer protected by the necessity of making an attornment, he does not become liable on the obligations of his lease to the new landlord until notified of the transfer. Consult: Kent, Commentaries on American Lau (Boston, 1896) : Taylor, Treatise on the Ameri can Law of Landlord and Telurnt (Boston, vari ous editions). • See LANDLORD AND TENANT.