Pennsylvania Act 1770-605 (session 1) — VALIDATING CONVEYANCES, ETC - HUSBAND AND WIFE

Act text

AN ACT

For the better confirmation of the estates of persons holding or claiming under femecoverts, and for establishing a mode by which husband and wife may hereafter convey their estates.

WHEREAS it hath been heretofore the custom and usage, ever since the settlement of this province, in transferring the estates of femecoverts, in many cases, for the husband and wife to execute the deed or conveyance in the presence of witnesses only, and in other cases, after such execution, to acknowledge the same before a justice of the peace, or a justice of the county court of common pleas, or before one of the judges of the supreme court, the said wife being separate and apart from her husband examined, by means whereof a very great number of bona-fide purchasers, for a valuable consideration, under such deeds and conveyances, are now become the just and equitable owners and possessors of such estates: And whereas some doubts have arisen, whether the said deeds are sufficiently valid in law to transfer and pass the estate of the wife in and to the lands, tenements and hereditaments, by the said deeds and conveyances intended to be transferred and conveyed, and it is but just and reasonable that the said purchasers should be quieted and secured, and have, hold and enjoy the lands tenements and hereditaments, intended by the said deeds and conveyances to be transferred and conveyed, according to the true intent and meaning thereof.

Section 1. Be it therefore enacted, That no grant, bargain and sale, lease, release, feoffment, deed, conveyance or assurance whatsoever, heretofore bona fide made and executed by husband and wife in manner aforesaid, of any lands, tenements and hereditaments whatsoever, shall be deemed, held or adjudged invalid or defective in law, or avoided or prejudiced; but that all and every the said grants, bargains and sales, releases feoffments, deeds, conveyances and assurances, shall be, and are hereby declared to be, good and valid in law for transferring and passing the estates, rights, titles and interests of such husband and wife, according to the true intent and meaning of the words thereof; saving to every person and persons, bodies politic and corporate whatsoever (other than to the said husband and wife), their heirs and successors, all such rights, titles, estates, claims and interests, as they or any of them have or ought to have, of, in or to the said lands, tenements and hereditaments.

Section 3. And be it further enacted, That all deeds and conveyances made and executed by husband and wife, not residing within this province, and brought hither to be recorded in the county where the lands lie (the acknowledgments thereof being taken and made, in the manner hereinbefore directed, before any mayor or chief magistrate, or officer of the cities, towns or places, where such deeds or conveyances are or shall be made or executed, and certified under the common or public seal of such cities, towns or places), shall be as valid and effectual in law as if the same had been made and acknowledged in manner aforesaid, before any judge of the supreme court of this province, or before any justice of the court of common pleas for the county where the lands lie, anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.