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. • 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).
“The Statute of 27 H.
8. hath advanced Uses, and hath established Surety for him that hath the Use against the Feoffees: for before the Statute the Feoffees were Owners of the Land, but now it is destroyed, and the cestuy que use is the Owner of the same: before the Possession ruled the Use, but since the Use governeth the Possession.” William Noy, A Treatise of the Principal Grounds and Maxims of the Laws of This Nation 73 (4th ed. 1677; repr. C. Sims ed., 1870).
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