Burden

Burden, a term of law in Scotland, used to signify any restriction, limitation, or encumbrance affecting either person or property. With regard to mere personal burdens, or obligations to pay, no difficulty occurs. But if the payment of a sum of money is intended to make a real burden on land, or to be secured on land which is being conveyed, care must be taken to give the exact sum and the name of the creditor (or by reference to recorded deeds to give the means of ascertaining these), and to state distinctly (although no particular form of words is essential) that the money is to be a burden or charge on the land. Registration of such words in the Register of Sasines is essential to the validity of the burden. The creditor in a real burden can pound the movables on the land, and can adjudge the land itself, and thereafter sue the tenants for rent. See the Scottish Land Title Acts of 1868 and 1874.