Conveyancing. A conveyance may be defined as the form prescribed by law or custom for transferring property from one person to another. In the earliest stage of society, before written titles and contracts were in use, property was transferred by symbolical acts, performed in the presence of witnesses. Thus, in Ruth, iv. 7, a person surrendering his rights binds himself by plucking off his shoe and giving it to his neighbour; 'and this was a testimony in Israel.' Among the ancient Goths and Swedes, the conveyance of land was made in the presence of witnesses, who extended the cloak of the buyer, while the seller threw into it a clod of land. Similar to these symbolic forms are the old English and Scottish modes of conveyance by solemn delivery of seisin, sasine, or possession. Goods have always been transferred with less ceremony than land; but the customs of ancient markets provided in certain cases for delivery in presence of witnesses, that frauds and disputes might be avoided.
Written forms of conveyance are almost as old as the art of writing. An early example is given in Jer. xxxii. 9-12, where the prophet describes his purchase of the field of Hanameel, and the book or written evidence of the purchase subscribed by the parties and their witnesses. The Romans carried the art of conveyancing to high perfection. They had public registers in which formal documents might be recorded; and the same legal forms were used by notaries and lawyers throughout the empire. The Roman law favoured freedom of alienation, and applied the same principles to movable and immovable property. When the barbarians broke into the empire, they brought their primitive customs with them; and Sir H. Maine has shown that barbarian custom and Roman law combined to form the feudal system. The great aim of feudalism was fixity of tenure; but the churchmen, who were also the lawyers and conveyancers of the period, were led by their own interest, and also by their superior education, to favour free alienation, both inter vivos and by will.
In England and in Scotland feudal ideas so far prevailed, that for some centuries the owner of land was hampered in dealing with it by the incidents of his tenure. He was liable for military or other service, and his land was subject to many incidental claims of a vexatious nature (see COPYHOLD, ESCHEAT, FEUDALISM, FINE, FREEHOLD). The church lawyers were driven to devise a whole system of conveyancing, the object of which was to enable corporations and private persons to evade the strict rules of the common law. Political insecurity led to the invention of other forms of secret conveyance. In England by the end of the 17th century the art of conveyancing had become a complicated mystery, and all dealings with land, in the way of commerce or of family settlement, were attended with expense and difficulty. Modern conveyancing has been rendered more simple and reasonable, and, on the whole, less expensive, by a series of reforms extending from the acts prepared on the advice of the Real Property Commissioners in 1832-33 to the Conveyancing Act, 1881, and the Settled Land Act, 1882.
In Britain it is not necessary to employ a professional person to prepare a conveyance; but the risk run by those who trust to a deed or will drawn by an unskilled person is considerable. Conveyancing is part of the ordinary work of solicitors, and in Scotland of writers to the Signet. In England many members of the bar devote themselves entirely to conveyancing; and there is also a special class of practitioners known as conveyancers who are members of the Inns of Court, but not called to the bar. Like solicitors, conveyancers are required to take out an annual certificate. In some of the large cities in the United States, companies have been formed to undertake conveyancing, and to guarantee titles to real estate. In learning and practising his art, the conveyancer is much assisted by collections of precedents, which contain the styles and forms which have been found most safe and useful. By turning over any of the books of precedents now in use, even the ordinary reader may obtain some notion of the variety and the importance of modern conveyancers' work. In the United States the laws of conveyancing are not uniform; but in general the essentials of a conveyance of land are that it shall be in writing, signed and sealed by the grantors, acknowledged before the officer appointed by law, and delivered and recorded in the office appointed. In most states conveyancing is done by members of the bar, but elsewhere by skilled conveyancers who are not otherwise lawyers. See DEED.