So yesterday's check on whether livery of seisin is still legal in New Zealand led me down a #LegalHistory rabbithole.

Section 58 of the Property Law Act 2007 (which prevents conveyance by livery of seisin) is entitled "Abolition of obsolete estates and rules", by which one might conclude it was only abolished in 2007, and indeed Hansard records MPs expressing this opinion.

So I then checked the Property Law Act 1952, where section 15, forbidding livery of seisin, has the marginal heading "Certain assurances abolished"

Ditto section 44 of the Property Law Consolidation Act 1883: "Forms abolished"

And likewise section 13 of the 1842 Conveyancing Act: "Forms abolished".

Technically this was not an Act of Parliament but an Ordinance of the Legislative Council, passed in the second year that NZ was a British Crown Colony.

So livery of seisin has not been legal in NZ for the entire duration of European settlement!

#NewZealand #PropertyLaw #LiveryOfSeisin