A mode of conveying freehold land which was in common use from 1536 to 1841. It was used to evade the Statute of Enrolments (27 Hen. 8, c. 16) passed to prevent land from being conveyed secretly by bargain and sale (q.v.). The Act required only bargains and sales of estates of inheritance or freehold to be enrolled, and therefore it soon became the practice on a sale of land for the vendor to execute a lease to the purchaser for a year by way of bargain and sale, which under the Statute of Uses (27 Hen. 8, c. 10), gave him seisin of the land without entry or enrolment, and then the vendor released his reversion to, the purchaser by a deed known as a release, thus vesting in him the fee-simple in possession without entry or livery of seisin. The lease and the release were executed on the same day, the release being dated for the following day and being executed after the lease. The consideration for the lease was a nominal sum of five or ten shillings, which was never paid, the real consideration being stated in the release. In 1841 the statute 4 Viet. c. 21, made a release effectual without the preliminary lease for a year, and in 1845 the Real Property Amendment Act, 1845, made a deed of grant sufficient for the conveyance of all corporeal hereditaments.
A release is still used (1) between joint tenants and coparceners ; (2) for the conveyance, to the owner of land, of rights over the land held by a person other than the owner ; (3) for the purpose of merging a remainder or reversion in the prior estate<\/p>\n<\/h4>\n
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