“Continual claim is, where a man hath right to enter into certain lands whereof another is seised in fee, or fee tail, and dares not enter for fear of death or beating, but approaches as nigh as he dares, and makes claim thereto within the year and day before the death of him that hath the lands ….” Termes de la Ley 114 (1st Am. ed. 1812).
continual claim
continual claim. Hist. A formal claim to a tract of land made by an out-of-possession owner who is deterred from taking possession by a menace of some type. • The claim — called continual because it had to be renewed an-nually — preserved the claimant’s right to the land. The owner had to make the claim as near to the land as could be done safely. This procedure gave the disseised person the same benefits (such as the right to devise the land) as a legal entry. The continual claim was abolished early in the 19th century.
