• This statute was the culmination of a series of enactments designed by the Tudors to stop the practice of creating uses in land that deprived feudal lords of the valuable incidents of feudal tenure. The statute discouraged the granting of property subject to another’s use by deeming the person who enjoys the use to have legal title with the right of absolute ownership and possession. So after the statute was enacted, if A conveyed land to B subject to the use of C, then C became the legal owner of the land in fee simple. Ultimately, the statute was circumvented by the courts’ recognition of the use of equitable trusts in land-conveyancing. See CESTUI QUE USE; GRANT TO USES; USE(4).
Statute of Uses
Hist. An English statute of 1535 that converted the equitable title held by a cestui que use (i.e., a beneficiary) to a legal one in order to make the cestui que use liable for feudal dues, as only a legal owner (the feoffee to uses) could be.
