Editing Escheat (section)

==Origins in feudalism==
In feudal England, escheat  referred to the situation where the tenant of a [[fief|fee]] (or "fief") died without an heir or committed a [[felony]]. In the case of such demise of a [[tenant-in-chief]], the fee reverted to the King's [[demesne]] permanently, when it became once again a mere tenantless plot of land,  but could be re-created as a fee by enfeoffment to another of the king's followers. Where the deceased had been [[subinfeudation|subinfeudated]] by a tenant-in-chief, the fee reverted temporarily to the crown  for [[Year and a day rule|one year and one day]] by right of ''[[seisin|primer seisin]]'' after which it escheated to the  over-lord who had granted it to the deceased by enfeoffment. From the time of [[Henry III of England|Henry III]], the monarchy took particular interest in escheat as a source of revenue.

===Background===
At the [[Norman Conquest]] of England in 1066, all the land of England was claimed as the personal possession of [[William the Conqueror]] under [[allodial title]]. The monarch thus became the sole "owner" of all the land in the kingdom, a position which persists to the present day. He then granted it out to his favoured followers, who thereby became [[tenant-in-chief|tenants-in-chief]], under various contracts of [[feudal land tenure]]. Such tenures, even the highest one of "[[English feudal barony|feudal barony]]", never conferred ownership of land but merely ownership of rights over it, that is to say ownership of an [[estate in land]]. Such persons are therefore correctly termed "land-holders" or "tenants" (from Latin ''teneo'' to hold), not owners. If held freely, that is to say by [[Freehold (law)|freehold]], such holdings were heritable by the holder's legal heir. On the payment  of a premium termed [[feudal relief]] to the [[treasury]], such heir was entitled to demand [[enfeoffment|re-enfeoffment]] by the king with the [[fief|fee]] concerned.

Where no legal heir existed, the logic of the situation was  that the fief had ceased to exist as a legal entity, since being tenantless no one was living who had been enfeoffed with the land, and the land was thus technically owned by either the crown or the immediate overlord (where the fee had been [[subinfeudated]] by the [[tenant-in-chief]] to a [[mesne lord]], and perhaps the process of subinfeudation had been continued by a lower series of mesne-lords) as ''[[ultimus haeres]]''. Logically therefore it was in the occupation of the crown alone, that is to say in the royal [[demesne]]. This was the basic operation of an escheat ('excadere'), a failure of heirs.

Escheat could also take place if a tenant was outlawed or convicted of a felony, when the King could exercise the ancient right of wasting the criminal's land for a year and a day, after which the land would revert to the overlord. (However, one guilty of treason (rather than mere felony) forfeited all lands to the King. John and his heirs frequently insisted on seizing as ''terrae Normannorum'' (i.e. "lands of the Normans") the English lands of those lords with holdings in Normandy who preferred to be Normans rather than Englishmen, when the victories of [[Philip II of France]] forced them to make a proclamation of allegiance to France.)  Since disavowal of a feudal bond was a felony, lords could escheat land from those who refused to perform their feudal services.  On the other hand, there were also tenants who were merely sluggish in performing their duties, while not being outright rebellious against the lord.  Remedies in the courts against this sort of thing, even in [[Henry de Bracton|Bracton]]'s day, were available, but were considered laborious and were frequently ineffectual in compelling the desired performance.  The most common mechanism was [[distraint]], also known as distress (districtio), whereby the lord would seize chattels or goods belonging to the tenant, to hold until performance was achieved.  This practice had been addressed in the 1267 [[Statute of Marlborough]].  Even so, it remained the most common extrajudicial method applied by overlords at the time of ''[[Quia Emptores]]''.<ref>Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, Vol 1, pp.&nbsp;355–366, Cambridge University Press, 1968</ref>

Thus, under English common law, there were two main ways an escheat could happen:
# A person's lands escheated to the immediate overlord if he was convicted of a [[felony]] (but not [[treason]], in that event the land was [[Asset forfeiture|forfeit]]ed to the Crown).  If the person was [[capital punishment|executed]] for felony, his heirs were [[Attainder|attainted]], i.e. were ineligible to inherit. In most common-law jurisdictions, this type of escheat has been abolished outright, for example in the [[United States]] under [[Article Three of the United States Constitution#Section 3: Treason|Article 3 § 3]] of the [[United States Constitution]], which states that [[bill of attainder|attainders]] for [[treason]] do not give rise to posthumous forfeiture, or "corruption of blood".
# If a person had no [[heir]] to receive his lands under his [[Will (law)|will]], or under the laws of [[intestacy]], then any land he owned at death would escheat. This rule has been replaced in most common-law jurisdictions by ''[[bona vacantia]]'' or a similar concept.