Surrender

Authors

Herbert Thorndike Tiffany

Abstract

A "Surrender" is defined by Lord Coke as a yielding up of an estate for life or years to him that hath an immediate estate in reversion or remainder, wherein the estate for life or years may drown by mutual agreement between them. This statement has been followed, more or less closely, by such other writers as have undertaken to define the term, and there has never been any question made as to its substantial correctness. A surrender, then, is a particular mode or form of transfer, which derives its distinguishing characteristics from the fact that it is made by the tenant of a particular estate to the reversioner or remainderman. This technical meaning of the word has, unfortunately, been to some extent obscured by its frequent use in an untechnical sense, as referring to relinquishment or yielding up, not of an estate, but of the possession of the premises, as when the lessee covenants to "surrender" the premises in good condition at the end of the term, and the courts, as will be shown hereafter, frequently, in using the term, fail to clearly distinguish between such a surrender of possession and a surrender, properly so called, of a particular estate for life or for years. Quite frequently, in using the term even in its technical sense, a surrender "of the lease" is spoken of, but this must be understood as merely an elliptical expression signifying a surrender of the particular estate or term created by the lease.

Recommended Citation

Herbert T. Tiffany, Surrender, 3 Mich. L. Rev. 18 (1904).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol3/iss1/3