Freehold

Freehold, borough, United States

Freehold, borough (1990 pop. 10,742), seat of Monmouth co., E central N.J.; settled c.1650, called Monmouth Courthouse (1715–1801), inc. as a town 1869, as a borough 1919. A former farm-trade and factory center, the borough is now a commercial hub for fast-growing surrounding Freehold Township and neighboring suburbs. St. Peter's Episcopal Church dates from c.1683. The Revolutionary War battle of Monmouth (see Monmouth, battle of) took place nearby in 1778.

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freehold, in property law

freehold: see tenure.

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freehold

In Anglo-American law, ownership of a substantial interest in real property (see real and personal property) held for an indefinite period. The term originally designated the owner of an estate held in free tenure, who possessed, under the Magna Carta, the rights of a free man. Today a freehold is distinguished from a leasehold, a contract to hold real property for a specified period. See also copyhold, fee, landlord and tenant.

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freehold Property law

a. tenure by which land is held in fee simple, fee tail, or for life

b. an estate held by such tenure

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freehold

1. A form of tenure of property held in fee simple, fee tail, or for life.

2. Property so held.

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Freehold 

a term for various forms of feudal landholding in medieval England. The concept of freehold in English common law included the holdings possessed by knights on condition of military service, the rented lands held by peasants and urban dwellers, and the holdings of the church. In a narrower sense, a freehold was a free holding within a manor; it was juridically contrasted to the holding of a villein and, from the 15th century, to the copyhold.

The peasant freeholder characteristically enjoyed personal freedom and the right of defense in the royal courts. He paid a relatively low fixed rent and had the right to dispose freely of his holding through devisal, partition, or alienation. By the late 12th century, these conditions had enabled the most prosperous peasant freeholders to attain a status close to that of petty feudal landowners. At the same time, the process of class differentiation among the peasantry entailed the impoverishment of most small peasant freeholders, whose status was reduced to that of villeins, later known as copyholders. The freehold was the form of landholding that provided the most favorable conditions for the transformation of land into bourgeois property.