Seisin in Deed Law and Legal Definition
Seisin in deed means actual possession of a freehold estate in land by oneself or by one’s tenant or agent. It does not mean a legal possession. It is also called as sesin in fact or actual sesin. At common law, a seisin in deed, in contradistinction to a seisin in law, is necessary to maintain a writ of right. But a seisin in deed may be acquired without an actual entry upon the land. Livery of seisin of one of several parcels of land gave seisin of the whole. So the entry upon one of several parcels conveyed in the same deed is as effectual as an entry upon each parcel. So if a man having good title to land, but not daring, for fear of personal injury, to enter upon it, approach as near as he can with safety and claim the land to be his, it gives him as good a seisin as an actual entry. Actual seisin is as necessary to complete a tenancy by the curtesy as to maintain a writ of right. If land be leased for years and the husband neither enter nor receive rent, yet he shall be tenant by the curtesy. Where the wife is devisee of unoccupied lands, upon which neither she nor her husband never enter, she has such a seisin in fact as entitles her husband to a tenancy by curtesy. In relation to such land, the possession is presumed to follow, and remain with, the title, till an adverse possession be shown.
