(l) Barnwell v. Harris, 1 Taunt. 430; Cooper v. Emery, 1 Ph. 388; Hodgkinson v. Cooper, 9 Beav. 304; Moulton v. Edmonds, 1 De G. F. & J. 246; Sug. V. & P. 365, 407.

When earlier title could be required.

(1.) Not less than one hundred years' title must have been shown to an advowson (n).

1. Advowson.

(2.) Upon a sale of a long term of years, the lease must have been produced, although more than sixty years old. But after the date of the lease the title during the sixty years next before the date of the contract for sale was all that could be required (o).

2. Long term.

(3.) Upon a sale of tithes or other property held under a grant from the Crown, the original grant must have been shown, although more than sixty years old. After the date of the grant, only sixty years' title prior to the contract need have been shown. The intermediate title could not be required (p).

3. Tithes or property held by Crown grant.

(4.) Upon the sale of a reversionary interest, its creation must have been shown, whatever its antiquity (q).

4. Reversionary interest.

(m) Purvis v. Rayer, 9 Price, 488; Souter v. Drake, 6 B. & Ad. 99*2. The rule also applied to a contract to grant a lease, whether for lives or years, snob a con-traot being regarded as equivalent to a sale fur the time the lease was to run; Roper v. Coomb -. 6 B. & C. 534: Sug. V. & P.:1G7, n. (1): Stranks v. St. John, L. R. 2 0. P. 376; Bee below, p. 101.

(n) Sug. V. & P. 367: 1 Dart. V. & P. 293, .5th ed.: 334, 6th ed.; 329, 7th ed.; Wms. Real Prop. 44y, 13th ed.; 692, 21st ed.

(o) Sug. V. & P. 370; F, v. Buekley, L. R. 5 Q. B. 213; 1 Dart, V. & P. 204, 5th ed.; 335,6th ed.; 330, 7th ed.; Wms. Real Prop. 4.50. 13th ed.; 592, 21st ed.

(p) Pickering v. Lord Sherborne, 1 Craw. & Dix, 254; 1 Prest. Abst. 30, 2nd ed.; 1 Jarm. Conv. by Sweet, 68; Sug. V. & P. 367; 1 Dart. V. & P. 295, 5th ed.; 336, 6th ed.; 331, 7th ed.

(q) 1 Prest. Abst. 19, 2nd ed.; 1 Jarm. Conv. by Sweet, 61; 1 Dart, V. & P. 294, 5th ed.; 335, 6th ed.; 329, 330, 7th ed.

Contract to grant a lease.

W

All these instances do but illustrate the point on which we have been insisting, that the vendor's obligation is to show that he has the right to convey what he sold, and unless the evidence offered in support of the title prove this, it is insufficient, though it were evidence of sixty years' ownership. The case of a sale of leaseholds is particularly instructive. On the ground that a purchaser of leaseholds was entitled equally with a purchaser of freeholds to the assurance that he should have the very thing he bought, it was held that the vendor was bound to produce the freeholder's title to grant the lease, if the lease were less than sixty years old (r). But if the lease had been granted more than sixty years before the sale, proof of sixty, years' enjoyment under the lease would establish the presumption that it had been well granted, and in such case the freeholder's title could not be called for; although the lease itself must have been produced, in order to prove that the vendor could assign the very interest which he had sold (s). The other cases will be found to depend on similar principles.

The law being as above stated, it was enacted in the Vendor and Purchaser Act, 1874 (t), as follows: - In the completion of any contract of sale of land (u) made after the 31st day of December, 1874, and subject to any stipulation to the contrary in the contract, forty years shall be substituted as the period of commencement of title which a purchaser may require in place of sixty years, the present period of such commencement; nevertheless earlier title than forty years may be required in cases similar to those in which earlier title than sixty years may now be required. This enactment in no way detracts from the main rule that the vendor must show a good title; it merely reduces the time, for which title must, as a rule, be proved, from sixty to forty years. By the same Act (x), the purchaser of a term of years was deprived of the right to call for the title to the freehold, in the absence of stipulation to the contrary; and by the Conveyancing Act of 1881 (y) the purchaser of a term granted by underlease was deprived of the right (unless expressly reserved) to call for the title to the leasehold reversion. The latter Act also took away from the purchaser of land, once of copyhold or customary tenure but converted into freehold by enfranchisement, the right (except by express agreement) to call for the title to make the enfranchisement (z). We have seen that a purchaser of leaseholds was entitled to call for the production of the lessor's title on the ground that the validity of a lease depends on the lessor's power to grant it (a). And where enfranchisement has been effected by the lord's conveyance of the freehold to the tenant, it is obviously material to prove the title to make the enfranchisement in order to establish a good right to the land (b). But before the above-mentioned enactments were passed purchasers frequently submitted in practice to special stipulations of the like nature (c), which seems to be the reason why these statutory provisions were made.

Vendor and Purchaser Act, 1874.

Forty years' title only now required.

(r) See cases cited ante, p. 97, n. (m).

(s) Ante, p. 97.

(t) Stat. 37 & 38 Vict. c. 78, s. 1.

(u) By the Interpretation Act, 1S89 (Stat. 52 & 53 Vict. c. 63, s. 3, replacing 13 & 14 Vict. c. 21, s. 4), in every Act passed after the year 1850 the expression " land " shall, unless the contrary intention appears, include messuages, tenements, hereditaments, houses and buildings of any tenure,

Title on purchase of leaseholds for years of enfranchised copyholds.

(x) Stat. 37 & 38 Vict. c. 78, s. 2. r. 1.

(y) Stat. 44 & 1") Vict. 0. 41, s. 3 (1), (9).

(z) Sect. 3 (2), (9).

(a) Ante, p. 98.