Lay Fee Law and Legal Definition
Lay Fee is a feud or fee held by services which were not religious. It is a land or associated rights which fell within the competence of the king's courts.
In England, a statute dealing with decedents' estates provides that: If a holder of lay fee dies, and when sheriff or bailiff do show Letters Patents of summon for debt, which the dead man owe; it shall be lawful to sheriff or bailiff to attach and inroll all the goods and chattles of the dead, found in the said fee, to the value of the same debt, by the sight and testimony of lawful men, so that nothing thereof shall be taken away until clearly paid off the debt; the residue shall remain to the Executors to perform the testament of the dead; if nothing is owing, all chattels shall go to the use of the dead (saving to his wife and children their reasonable parts). [In re Killough's Estate, 148 Misc. 73, 76 (N.Y. Sur. Ct. 1933)].
