1819. ROE against LOVELESS. produced a copy of the court-rolls of the manor, dated 13th June, 1789, by which it appeared, that Richard Kiddle, and Sarah his wife, took of the lord the reversion or remainder of and in the premises in question, therein described as being then in the tenure of them the said Richard Kiddle, and Sarah Kiddle his wife; to have and to hold to James Cosh, aged nineteen years, for the term of his natural life, at the will of the lord, according to the custom of the said manor, immediately after the death, surrender, or forfeiture of the said Richard Kiddle, and Sarah his wife, by yearly rent, &c.; and the said Richard Kiddle and Sarah Kiddle gave to the lord for a fine 371. 12s.; and it is granted in form aforesaid. The plaintiff then proved the death of Richard Kiddle and his wife. It was objected, on the part of the defendant, that the admittance of Cosh ought to have been proved to give him the legal title. The learned Judge directed the jury to find for the plaintiff, reserving liberty to the defendant to move to enter a nonsuit; and a rule nisi having been obtained by Moore for that purpose in Michaelmas term, Casberd now shewed cause. The lessor of the plaintiff takes not by descent or surrender, but by grant from the lord: he is named in the habendum, and takes a separate independent interest; an admittance may therefore be implied, from the nature of the grant. In Watkins on Copyholds, pp. 400, 401., it is laid down, that if the admission be not actually and formally made, the grant would of itself warrant the grantee to enter, as the very act of making the grant necessarily supposes the acceptance of him as tenant; and in p. 406. it is said that an admittance is the acceptance of him as tenant; and in p. 407., when a grant is made to a person, the very execution and delivery of that grant to him is in itself an acceptance of him as tenant from the nature of the thing. The giving him the rod or accustomed symbol, is the investing him with the possession of the tenement, and not the acceptance of his person; and he also referred to C. B. Gilbert's Treatise on Tenures, 282, 283., and 419, 420, 421. 430. 436. Here, too, the payment of a fine imports an admission, for none can be due without admission. Watkins, 412. Gilbert, 443. 450. 486. A. Moore and P. Williams, contrà. The legal title to a copyhold is not complete until admittance. Till admittance, the grantee has no legal interest; and in practice it forms the usual evidence of the grant. The only case where an admittance is not required is where the title accrues by operation of law: but it is necessary, where it accrues by voluntary grant from the lord; and they cited Gyppen v. Bunney (a), Brown's case (b), Barnes v. Corke (c), Doe, on Demise of Milner, v. Brightwen (d), Court-keeper's Guide, p. 136. ABBOTT C. J. If there had been any special custom in this manor, making a difference, on the admission of a grantee of an estate in reversion and other estates, it was incumbent on the party who relied upon that custom to prove it. In the absence of any such proof, we must decide this case upon the general custom. Now, by the general law of copyhold, the lord has a right to insist that the tenant shall come in, to be admitted and (a) Cro. Eliz. 504. (b) 4 Rep. 21. Hh 2 do 1819. ROE against LOVELESS. do fealty and homage. The heir of a copyholder has a good title against every person except the lord, who may command him to come in and do fealty and homage. A surrenderec has no title until he come in and be admitted, because there must be the assent of the lord to the surrender of the previous tenant. But where, as here, the lord makes an original grant, no admittance to a copyhold conformable to the custom of the manor seems necessary, except in cases analogous to those where livery of seisin would be requisite in the grant of a freehold. Now a feoffment is not effectual, till livery of seisin takes place. But a freehold may be granted in reversion, without any livery of seisin; and therefore, reasoning by analogy from the grant of a freehold, it seems to me, that the grantee of a copyhold in reversion has a good and perfect title by the grant, without admittance, and that being so, he may take possession on the death of the tenant for life. And he has, therefore, a right to maintain this action. BAYLEY J. I am of the same opinion. There is a very plain distinction between the case of conveying an estate from a copyholder to another person, and conveying it from the lord to that person. In the case of a conveyance from one copyholder to another, the copyholder is bound first to convey his estate to the lord by surrender, and when he surrenders his estate to the lord, he does it with the intent that the lord shall grant it out again; the estate remains in the surrenderor till the lord grants it out again. (a) It then vests in the surrenderee, from the period of the surrender; and the lord grants 66 novo to hold," which term shews that the title of (a) Watkins, 94. Cro. Car. 283. de the surrenderee is thereby complete; for by that term he accepts him as his tenant. In pleading title to a copyhold, it is only necessary to state that at such a court the lord granted out the estate to such a person, to have and to hold: the surrender and admittance need not be stated. If an admittance, however, after a grant, were essential to make a perfect title, it must be alleged, that the lord granted, and that the tenant was admitted; but that is never done. The truth is, that an admittance by the lord is, in reality, a new grant from him, by virtue of which the surrenderee takes the estate. Now that is the mode by which the property passes from one copyholder to another who is to be a copyholder. But when the estate is in the lord, no surrender is necessary: the lord then actually grants in the first instance; and if admittance were essential, to give effect to such a grant, you would be bound, in pleading, to state, not only that the lord had granted, but that, after granting, the lord had admitted; now that certainly is not usual in pleading. When the lord grants an immediate estate in possession, then, on the ordinary principles which apply to things which lie in livery, there must be seisin, or that which is equivalent to seisin; but that is where the thing lies in livery, being a corporeal hereditament, which is to be possessed instanter. In the case of a reversion it is not so: the reversion lies not in livery, but in grant, and the grant is operative from the moment it is made. It has been said that if this be so, in future there will be no necessity for more than one admittance, and that at the time of the original grant. I do not, however, accede to that; for if the copyholders, to whom grants have been made, choose to sell their estates, then the mode of selling will be by surrender into the hands of the Hh 3 lord: 1819. Ror against LOVELESS lord; and if it be a life-estate, the lord will accept the surrender on the terms there mentioned; and will then admit the new tenant, and by that admittance will, in point of law, make him a new grant: therefore, whereever there is to be a change of property by the copyholder himself, there must be a surrender and an admittance. It is only in those cases where the party is to claim title by an actual grant from the lord, that an admittance will be unnecessary. I am of opinion, that an admittance applies only to those cases where a surrender is first necessary; and that being so, the evidence was sufficient, and the rule must be discharged. HOLROYD J. I am also of opinion, that the lessor of the plaintiff is entitled to recover. The cases referred to in the course of the argument, where an admittance in form was considered necessary, were cases of surrender, where the lord makes no grant, except so far as the admittance itself may operate as a grant. In those cases, the estate, in point of law, passes to the lord and then from him, but it does not pass from the surrenderor to the surrenderee, until the lord has done some other act, either by an express admittance, or that which in law amounts to an implied admittance. On that account admittance is necessary in the case of a surrender, before an estate can pass to the surrenderee. This, however, is a very different case: here the lord grants a reversion or a remainder, after the termination of the life-estate, to Cosh for his life, at the will of the lord, according to the custom of the manor, immediately after the death of the tenant for life. Now, by that grant, nothing more is requisite to be done by the lord to remove the estate out of him. It is already gone from |