Deeds have from an early period been em ployed for the transfer of certain interests in land. but their general and almost exclusive use for this purpose is quite modern. Formerly. at common law, freehold interests in land were created or conveyed by the formal ceremony known as livery of seizin. while all estates less than freehold were subject to alienation by parol, deeds being required only to convey the class of interests known as incorporeal. such as ease ments, profits, future interests in land, and the like. But deeds have now. under the technical description of grants. ahnost entirely superseded other nodes of eonveyance of interests in land. Only estates for years or tenancies at will are still capalde of arising by parol or by writing not under seal, and in England even leaseholds, or three years and upward, can he created or transferred only by deed. In Great Britain and most of the United States, the general use of deeds for purposes of conveyance is a matter of regulation by statute.
In form, however, the deed remains substan tially the same as at common law. The writing must still be on paper or parchment, though it may to day be clone by the typewriting machine or the printing-press. The old requirement of a seal is also generally adhered to, though in a few of the Western States it has been abolished, and in most others a scroll, or similar mark made with the pen, may be substituted for the more usual wafer or sealing-wax. But, whatever its form, the important thing is not the adhesion to the paper of something called a seal. but the sealing of the instrument by the party to be bound by it. It must be `his own act and seal.' At the present time, also. it is generally con sidered that the instrument must contain the name of the maker in his own handwriting, al though prior to the Statute of Frauds, in I64S, signing was not necessary to the validity of deeds, and it is not clear that the statute con templated any addition to the formalities with which they were already surrounded.
Delivery is properly accomplished by the obli gated party handing over the sealed writing in person to the party to be benefited thereby. Either party may, however, be represented by an agent, and a delivery to an unauthorized third person is good if subsequently ratified by the benefited party. indeed, it has been held that any unequivocal act on the part of the obligated party, showing an intention to vest the posses sion of the document in the benefited party, is suflivient to constitute a delivery, even without a manual transfer of possession to any one—as where the former, at or after the t line of sealing, utters the words, 'I deliver this as my net and deed,' or where he incloses the sealed writing in an envelope. addressed to the benefited party, though retaining it in his own possession. There is some conflict of authority, however, as to whether a delivery of the latter sort, or to a third person. which, in fact, never collies to the knowledge of the party intended to be benefited, will be sustained by the courts. There may also be a conditional delivery, which is made to a third person, as an 'escrow,' or mere writing, to be delivered over to the benefited party on the performance of some act or the happening, of some event. An escrow does not take effect as a deed until the delivery over. when it takes effect, by relation hack, as of the time of its first de livery. See Escaow. and the titles of the vari ous kinds of deeds, as CONTNANT: GRANT: LEASE ANn Consult: Coke on Littleton; Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of Eng land; Kent. commentaries on American Law; Pollock and Naitland. History of English haw (2(1 ed., London and 'Boston, 1899) ; Holmes, The Common Low (Boston. SS1) ; and the au thorities referred to under REAL PROPERTY.