Estate

“ That an estate is a pond, but that a trade was a spring; that if the first is once mortgaged it seldom gets clear, but embarrasses the person for ever; but the merchant had his estate continually flowing ”

“ ESTATE (through O. Fr. estat, mod. état, from Lat. status, state, condition, position, stare, to stand) , the state or condition in which a man lives, now chiefly used poetically and in such phrases as “man’s estate,” or “of high estate” ”

“ He came late in life to the position of a landed proprietor, and he at once set before himself as his object the endeavour to make his estate as perfect as it could be made—perfect in the way in which a naturally beautiful country and his own good taste invited him to make it, but beyond all, as perfect as might be, viewed as the dwelling-place of his tenants and the labouring poor. ”

“ I think it very clear from thousands of examples that an estate is valued ‘as a going concern.’ The question that the jurors put to themselves is: ‘What will this estate bring in, peopled as it is and stocked as it is?’ In other words, they do not endeavour to make abstraction of the villeins, oxen, etc. and to assign to the land what would be its annual value if it were stocked or peopled according to some standard of average culture. Consequently in a few years the value of an estate may leap from one pound to three pounds or to five shillings or even to zero. ”

“ Thus a new estate and property sprung up in the hands of mortgagees, to whom every house and foot of land in England paid a rent-charge, free of all taxes and dafalcations, and purchased at less than half value. ”

“ The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth fall under measure; and the greatness of finances and revenue, doth fall under computation. The population may appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps. But yet there is not any thing amongst civil affairs more subject to error, than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate. ”

“ Men of estate studied the public good, and gave examples of true piety, loyalty, justice, sobriety, charity; and the good of the neighborhood composed most differences. Laws were reasons, not craft; men's estates were secure: they served their generation with honor, left patrimonial estates improved to a hopeful heir, who, passing from the free school to the college, and thence to Inns of Court, acquainting himself with a competent tincture of the laws of his country, followed the example of his worthy ancestors. ”

“ Where a man sought to recover an estate in land, or a house, or any specific thing, as a ring, a horse, a slave, nothing further was required, than to determine to whom the estate, the house, or the thing demanded, of right belonged. ”

“ Estate after estate was sold for several generations, till, at last, my father found himself the heir to a half-ruined castle on the borders of the ocean, and a few thousand acres of unproductive land in the same neighbourhood. My mother, who is now a saint in heaven, was as much so as a mortal can be when on earth ”

“ Or what if, from your own estate—that estate which, unexpectedly acquired so late in life, has inspired into you this generous thirst after knowledge, you were to select some elderly peasant, that might best be spared from the land ”

“ Such was the estate, and such the man who founded and enjoyed it sixty years ago; and many an equal estate, founded and occupied by equally valuable men, then existed, and still exist in all our older states; and if our private and public virtues are preserved, will ever exist in every state of our union. ”

“ I suppose, now, a large estate may turn out a fortunate or unfortunate legacy accordingly as you use it; but if your legacy is only the knowledge that the estate ought to be yours, and isn't, that is a fine set of circumstances! ”

“ That one who wrongfully dispossessed another of his land, succeeded to the estate or interest in the land, was one of the most deeply rooted doctrines of the common law from the time when the idea of an estate in lands was first conceived. ”

“ From what I have hitherto said, it is evident that in many cases the valuing of an estate presents to the mind an extremely complicated problem, and there are so many exceptions and limitations, and so many points of doubtful nature—the question of the age, for instance, at which the coffee tree declines—that I cannot attempt to do more than indicate those to which the valuator should turn his attention. There are, however, points on which I can express a more decided opinion—the shade on an estate, its kind, or kinds, and regulation. ”

“ In this estate book is set down the name of every little estate (or fisc as it was called) belonging to the abbey, with a description of the land which was worked under its steward to its own profit, and the land which was held by tenants, and the names of those tenants and of their wives and of their children, and the exact services and rents, down to a plank and an egg, which they had to do for their land. We know today the name of almost every man, woman, and child who was living on those little fiscs in the time of Charlemagne, and a great deal about their daily lives. ”

“ It is possible that an estate may be suddenly raised. There are those that will be rich, by right or wrong, who make no conscience of what they say or do if they can but get money by it, who, when it is in their power, will cheat their own father, and who sordidly spare and hoard up what they get, grudging themselves and their families food convenient and thinking all lost but what they buy land with or put out to interest. By such ways as these a man may grow rich, may grow very rich, in a little time, at his first setting out. 2. An estate that is suddenly raised is often as suddenly ruined. ”

“ But if a man grant an estate in fee-simple, reserving to himself and his heirs a certain rent; and that, if such rent be not paid at the times limited, it shall be lawful for him and his heirs to re-enter, and avoid the estate ”

“ Another kind of life estate is that which is acquired, not by the acts of the parties, as by lease, but by the operation of law. Such is the right of a husband to the real estate of his wife acquired by her before or after marriage. ”

“ An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto, that time was his estate; an estate, indeed, which will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labours of industry, and satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie waste by negligence, to be over-run with noxious plants, or laid out for shew, rather than for use. ”

“ I have an expensive house and establishment on my estate, which obtains its principal value from the circumstance that it is so placed that I can look after my interests with the least inconvenience to myself. ”

“ Estates not of freehold or less than freehold are subdivided into (i.) estates for years (often called estates for a term of years, the instrument creating it being termed a lease or demise, and the estate itself a leasehold interest) ; (ii.) estates at will, that is, where lands or tenements are let by one man to another to have and to hold at the will of the lessor; (iii.) estates at sufferance, where one comes into possession of land under a lawful title, and continues in possession after his title has determined. ”

“ A cause involving so large a sum of money, so fine a landed estate, honourably acquired by the late proprietor, and generously bequeathed to myself, must necessarily include many interests of a varied character. ”

“ In a devise of real and personal property, the law makes a distinction as to the two estates, in the construction of devisees; and, when technical language is used, the devisee takes an absolute estate in the personal, and a limited estate, or an estate tail, in the real property. ”

“ May not the term interest, contained in that enumeration, considered in its relative collocation to the terms rents and profits, be understood as equivalent with the word estate, especially when the terms rents and profits may be correctly taken to cover interest understood as mere revenue, and still more especially when we keep in view the previous purpose set forth in the deed,-that of settling on the feme, and subjecting to her disposition by deed or will, the whole of her estate, real and personal? ”

“ An estate pur autre vie in incorporeal hereditaments—as a rent, for instance, granted by one person to another, during the life of a third party, and the grantor of which dies during the life-time of the person who holds the property—goes to the executor. ”

“ You will pass in your journeys many a fine park and noble palace going to decay through the fines and alienations which have fallen upon them, and you will thus see for yourself how truly it has been lately written, that ‘an estate is but a pond, but trade a spring;’ for you will also come upon fair houses, whose owners’ names were unknown before the late Civil Wars, and you will find them flourishing by means of trade, honourably carried on from father to son, whereby not only wealth, but titles too have been won for this generation, and which promise to last for many yet to come. ”

“ For the owner of an estate that yields fifty pounds, for instance, barely gets half of it; while the shreek, he who tills and cultivates the land, gets away with the other half, sniffing and grumbling withal. ”

“ Having thus delivered the antient and proper method of constituting an estate for life, let us attend to the consequences, and see what were the several rights and obligations of the lord and tenant, and for that purpose examine the oath of fealty. ”

“ Of FREEHOLD ESTATES, of INHERITANCE.
THE next objects of our disquisitions are the nature and properties of estates. An estate in lands, tenements, and hereditaments, signifies such interest as the tenant hath therein: so that if a man grants all his estate in Dale to A and his heirs, every thing that he can possibly grant shall pass thereby [1] . ”

“ But the man who has a country estate bordering on the property is willing to pay the company a small sum just to round out his estate, and your interest in it we calculate would be about two hundred dollars. ”

“ There is an estate on which we pay no tax and which is not susceptible of improvement. It is of indefinite extent and is to be reached by taking the road to the nearest woods and fields. While this is quite as valuable as any property we may possess, as a matter of fact few assert their title to it. ”

“ Where the father was a landowner, for instance, the principal estate always descended to the son, whereas the daughter had to be content with some smaller estate of less value, or with part of the personal property. ”

“ The estate of the dead man was comparatively small—a city house on a fashionable street, Sunnyside, a large estate largely mortgaged, an insurance of fifty thousand dollars, and some personal property—this was all. ”

“ The proviso is this: That should you not live to be seventy years of age, the estate, and all pertaining to it, shall pass away from you and yours at your death, and go to your cousin, the son of my brother Henry; or to his heirs, should he not be alive at the time. But should you overpass your seventieth birthday, though it be but by twelve short hours, the estate will remain yours, to will away to whom you please, or to dispose of as you may think best. ”

“ It is but too common with the son, who has a prospect of an estate, when once he arrives at the age of one and twenty, to think the old father too long in the way between him and it; and how much more will he be subject to it, when, by this act, he shall have liberty, before he comes to that age, to compel and force my estate from me, without asking my leave, or being liable to account with me for it, or out of his share thereof, to a moiety of the debts, portions, or other encumbrances, with which the estate might have been charged before the passing of this act! ”

“ A topic of this sort, of which the person himself may be considered as almost sole proprietor and patentee, is an estate for life, free from all incumbrance of wit, thought, or study, you live upon it as a settled income; and others might as well think to eject you out of a capital freehold house and estate as think to drive you out of it into the wide world of common sense and argument. Every man’s house is his castle ”

“ Real estate descends to heirs; personal to executors or administrators. In ordinary language, an estate is a piece of landed property, especially one of some size. Estate duty, see Death Duties. In political history the term estate is applied to a distinct order or class in society. The term 'fourth-estate' is often used to designate the Press.
Estates of Scotland, the name given to a body of similar constitution to the English Parliament, but with important differences, the king himself, as well as his officers, being responsible to the Estates for wrongs done. ”

“ This rule is explained by the conception of a freehold estate as an interest in lands held by the freeholder from some lord, the king being lord paramount. (See Estate.) The granter retains an interest in the land similar to that of the donor of an estate for life, to whom the land reverts after the life estate is ended. As there are now few freehold estates traceable to any mesne or intermediate lord, escheats, when they do occur, fall to the king as lord paramount. ”

“ What we call real estate—the solid ground to build a house on—is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests. ”

“ To give to my eldest son Arthur, Marquis of Douro, and the heirs male of his body the use of the House in Piccadilly, of the furniture thereto belonging, and to pay him and the heirs male of his body the annual interest which may be received for such money in the funds in Exchequer Bills or wherever it may be and the rent arising from any estate which the trustees may think proper to purchase with the said money. ”