Talk:Allodial title

Cleanup
I've added a cleanup tag to this article. It's really atrocious -- has large sections of confusion punctuated by passages of total nonsense. I've also deleted a little bit of total tax protester drivel, like the bit about "declaring one's sovereign right." But, really, I'm not sure this article can be salvaged. It really needs the attention of someone who knows a lot about the history and philosophy of property and property law (which is not me -- I just know more than whoever wrote it). --Paultopia (talk) 17:46, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

This article has significant inaccuracies, in particular insofar as it relates to English law (there aint no such thing as British law -- ghastly notion). The historical section is an awful pastiche and has some howlers (we didn't have Dukes until after Quia Emptores for example) but gives the wrong impression of how things worked.

Also, as used in English law, "Allodial Land" means something (land which has no lord) which does not easily fit with the idea of an "allodial title", we have to clarify how the phrase has developed in meaning in the US to make this NPOV. Perhaps a Scottish lawyer could assist with allodium there.

Francis Davey 22:19, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Help! Can someone who knows more about wikipedia please undo the last merge!!!! I spent some time getting the allodial article vaguely accurate. Now that has all been wiped out into this mess of an article with (as I said) lots of inaccuracies. I notice very little has been carried over from the other article to here and the action was done without proper consulation. Also all the talk is lost.

Francis Davey 21:02, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Right of conquest?
The article states that the U.S. obtained New Mexico, California, and Arizona by conquest. Obviously this was true as a practical matter, but... technically, these lands were obtained by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war. Since I believe that treaty contained provisions relating to land ownership, it seems as we should be going down the legal route here. --Jfruh 17:54, 12 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I am a U.S. lawyer who wandered onto this article through reading the article on bailments. This is one of my first postings here so excuse any inadvertent screwups.  I never heard of allodial title before.  The content of the article seems inaccurate.  Wikipedia is certainly universal.  I believe legal principles should be meticulously stated.  The jurisdiction is important to mention.  Heaven help any nonlawyer who reads this article and relies on it for knowledge.  Another objection to the article is that the writing lacks clarity.  It certainly isn't a sexy topic but I'm an Anglophile.  I love reading about the merry old days in mother England.  75Janice 22:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * no offense Janice but you need to read the books they dont show you in school like Leviathan, and have a full understanding of English title law history, as well as the history of the United States to even begin commenting. You've probably never heard people talk property law at all, because that is a specific GREATLY IN DEPTH and jurisdiction specific discipline.  Allodial title means what this article says it does in the legal dictionaries also, so go read some books before you speak things you are uninformed on please.  BAR stands for British Accreditation registry, regis meaning property of the CROWN TEMPLE BAR. So you probably literally know nothing that you think you do and itd be very good for you to discover the real history, factually, in legal dictionaries and in treaties and books like Leviathan, or The Free Sea, or others from the 1600s through 1850s. Also you must study the banking history and hostile takeovers and debts of States to discover who is beholden to whom, when, and why.

Is this a joke or what
Few citations from the article as it is now: "... free and clear of any encumbrances, including liens, mortgages and tax obligations ...", "... absolute property ... without ... acknowledgement to a superior ...", and "... in the United States most lands are allodial ...".(citation needed)

If someone has a property, is (s)he responsible to the state and is (s)he obliged to pay property taxes or not? Does the property owner have full/complete power over his property, or should obey court orders, search warrants, etc.? Not to talk about mortgages at all.

It would be nice if the complete freedom was walking throughout the U.S.A. but then we would have seen more dukes and less counties there. -- Goldie (tell me) 19:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Treaty of Paris
Where is allodial title mentioned in the Treaty of Paris?


 * According to the Treaty of Paris section of this article, it resulted in the creation of allodial title in the US. I'm not a US lawyer, so I have no really clear idea of whether that is right, but that's what it says here. Francis Davey 08:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I read the text of the treaty. There's no reference to allodial title. I'm beginning to wonder about the content of this article as a whole. Alan 12:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Not to mention that what is stated in the article sounds rather unlikely, anyway: England [sic] agreed to give up any Crown rights to the land, and agreed that all land in the American colonies was held in allodial title. It rather goes without saying that "Crown rights to the land" would be given up, as this is virtually inherent in the notion of conceding independence.  And the notion that the treaty would stipulate the nature of property title seems absurd even before reading the text of the treaty; what would be the point?!  Silverhelm 16:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC).


 * I'd propose deleting references to the Treaty of Paris and the section on equitable tenures. Alan 21:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I am only speculating on this and know nothing about law and what actually did happen. Maybe allodial came as a consequense that all land was previously owned by the crown and after the treaty lost ownership of it. Either the states would become the new owners or the people themself as any other kind of private property hence enjoy the same rights as anyone of royal heritage. Lord Metroid 21:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Confusing part about eminent domain
"However, "To say that land is owned 'allodially' is a fiction. For land is subject to expropriation by way of eminent domain." [1]" What does this mean? Is it inalienable or not? Mammalian 13:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Obviously because the state can just take your property without legal consequense the state owns it. Lord Metroid 22:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not that the state owns your property, just that the state creates your rights, and one of those is the right to property; ergo, the state can create (and has created) a limited right. bd2412  T 22:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)>>
 * That may be the theory in some places, but some formulations of rights (e.g. US Bill of Rights, Declaration of the Rights of Man) assert that rights exist independently of the state. A more generally applicable myth theory, I think, would be that we partially surrender some of our rights through the social contract.  —Tamfang (talk) 07:32, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * States do not create rights. Rights belong to people intrinsically, and we delegate powers to states in order to secure our rights. This delegation is not a surrender of our rights. 24.6.157.14 (talk) 13:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

alienation
An inalienable right is one that cannot be transferred to another; that means, among other things, that it cannot be sold. Is that true of allodial titles? If not, the word ought to be changed. —Tamfang 18:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * No idea. My jurisdiction has no allodial land (as I would understand the term), so I can only guess. Sadly, this article has given me no more clue. Francis Davey 19:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The word is unalienable, and the concept would be that the right to own property in allodium or title in allod (aka title in allodium) would be the right of the people to be free of tax, duty, or impost, when purchasing and owning land. It doesnt mean an allodial title is unalienable, as unalienable rights only are for men and women, not property. But the right to own property outright is unalienable, however people with gavels and guns will argue otherwise, and since they outnumber you, they are right.

All this so far seems to have done was create a fifedom with an oligarchical political class forcing everyone to subsidize their parasitism, and it was from the inception of the country. The literal first two amendments of the bill of rights were going to be pay for representatives, and their numbers. It seems like very little had to do with freedom, and all it was was a creation of a quasi autonomous parliament in the United States, from my limited, but worldly perspective. [Anonymous] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:100C:B02D:226F:D117:855A:7686:5CF5 (talk) 23:31, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Allodial Title and the law of England and Wales
I've just stumbled on this article and regret to say that as regards England and Wales, in its present state, it is almost completely wrong. I am writing this as an English lawyer. The only point where it is correct is that England and Wales do not have allodial title. Yes, all land is notionally held of the Crown, but in practice this has almost no practical consequences. It does not even have much practical bearing on land which is owned by central government.

Land registration was not introduced in the 18th century, It was introduced in the 19th century, but outside London has only really spread since about 1970. There was an attempt to introduce deed registration by counties in the 16th century. It failed because conveyancers found a way of circumventing it. Scotland and many other jurisdictions did have deed registation. This included many colonies. Scotland has had what was called the Register of Sassines. There was a form of deed registration in Yorkshire, by Riding. That did derive from the 18th century. Deed registration is a quite different concept from land registration.

So far as English law is concerned, if there was allodial title, this would have no bearing on either mortgages or taxation. It would have none of the bizarre effects the article hints at. There would be nothing in English law that could make allodial land any more or less alienable than any other. Indeed, under medieval or early modern law, such land, if it had existed, would have been more alienable since there would have been no seignorial rights to restrain alienation. Mortgages are enforceable because of the terms under which they created, as developed and limited by the courts and statute over the centuries. They are not a matter of tenure.

Again, the raising of taxes is not a matter of tenure. It derives under modern English law from the executive powers given to the state by statute. Furthermore, it is taxpayers that are taxed, not pieces of land. So the idea that some form of tenure could take a piece of land outside the state's powers of taxation simply is not part of English law at all. As a concept, it does not make sense.

I get the impression from the article that it may be that in the US, what we would call compulsory purchase, is called eminent domain. So the state's ability to acquire property is seen as deriving from the equivalent of the fact that notionally all land is held of the Crown. However, in England and Wales compulsory purchase does not work like that. What happens is that the government, local authority or whatever is given specific powers to purchase land whether or not the owner is willing to sell. The purchasing entity has to pay for it. There are frequently arguments about how to value the land. It buys broadly what the owner is capable of selling. The owner does not surrender their tenure. They sell the land in the normal way, just like any other sale except it is involuntary.

As a demonstration of this, if there is more than one interest in the land, e.g. a freehold and a lease, the purchasing entity has to buy in each of them separately.

There is no sense that in some way this derives from medieval ideas about derivative tenure. The purchase can only take place if the power is given by legislation of some sort. The purchase has to comply strictly with the rules applicable to the legislation under which the power to purchase is given.

It is possible that concepts of tenure may have made it easier for English land and trust law to develop some of their more sophisticated features. They might have been harder to imagine in a jurisprudence where ownership was more 'absolute' on a Latin model. That, though, is a different question.

I'm not going to try and change the article as it's difficult to know where to start and much of it is written from the standpoint of a legal system I know next to nothing about. But I thought I'd offer this in the hope that there was someone out there who just happened to have this on their watch list and might be interested.--Browne-Windsor (talk) 11:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with your criticisms on this article, & believe its bizarreness is due to someone who is not at all familiar with real estate law mistakenly applying it to modern practice in the UK & the US. However, IMHO the concept of allodial title is alien to both countries. You have stated the reasons for it in the UK; in the US there was a thorough & intentional movement to eleiminate all possible effects of feudalism by 19th century legal-types, some of whom understood what they were doing better than others. Thus either all land under US law has an allodial title -- for there is no lord is owed rent or services for holding it -- or none of it has one, for I can subrent or sublease any real estate I own an interest in.


 * As for the section on allodial title being used by tax protesters, while these applications of the theory are interesting as well as plausible (US tax protesters are nothing if not ingenuous in finding rationales for not paying taxes), I'd be far happier with this section if it furnished actual, verifiable cases where these arguments have been made in court. Until these sources are supplied, this section is nothing more than so much original research, a personal essay on "suggested frivolous arguments you can make to a judge & risk being jailed for contempt of court". -- llywrch (talk) 20:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Since which time the European Charter of Fundamental Rights has put the final nail into the coffin of the idea, making it illegal for a State to dispossess a citizen without fair compensation. As a minor detail, to prove the greater point, the Cadbury factory at Knighton in the Welsh Marches stood partly on an allodial fee, a minor legal discrepancy which was tidied up in the 1980s. Cadbury never attempted to use it to claim exoneration from taxation, even though I argued the point with their tax adviser!
 * The idea is relevant to mediaeval studies, but lapsed once monarchy ceased to be based on Divine Right and became constitutional, in the UK after the Civil War and in other countries with their various Revolutions of the 19the Century. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.96.143.179 (talk) 20:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Allodial Title over your own body?
In the US, does a person have allodial title over their own body? Or is this addressed in another section of law? DiprotiumOxide (talk) 13:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about the US, but can't see how a person would own their body. It's more that it's part of them. I'm aware though that there have been arguments about ownership of bodies of dead people and medical research derived from parts of dead people.Browne-Windsor (talk) 18:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)]]

This is actively in dispute (that is, can you sell you organs for a profit? Can you prostitute your body, etc.) From my limited, lay knowledge of property law, it seems that (in the U.S.) there are two general theories. One is that you do have title to your "body," but that title is limited (remember the "bundle of sticks" explanation for fee simple). The second is that you don't -- at least you can't formulate a claim for conversion (see Moore v. Regents of the University of California, 793 P.2d 479). Regardless, alloidal title doesn't seem to be particularly relevant in the U.S. at all (from law school and various treatises I've searched in--a 1L property law class does not even mention it, and it seems to have only a passing mention in treatises.) This brings me to my second point (below). Lazulilasher (talk) 00:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The US seems to have no problem issuing Intellectual Property rights in respect to various mechanisms by which life maintains itself. The putative implication is that if I wish to continue living I must pay those copyright owners a licence fee for the use of the techniques they have sequestered unto themselves! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.96.143.179 (talk) 20:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

To clarify:

A "person" is a fictitious corporation [dead body] and only exists in the mind. A flesh and blood man or woman, specifically only those words used in Common Law, has allodial title to their self, presumably, but a Person is a fiction created which has limited rights. This is the reason for the LICENSEs and allows subsequent transgressions like blood draws for example at DUI checks. A license gives a privilege of licentiousness meaning a person can act in a manner that is illegal or immoral otherwise, according to the State anyway. Note I did not say a "man", needs a license, and I did not say a man doesnt have a right that is "UNALIENABLE" such as the right to travel.

Licenses come from corporations or royal souverains which gave individuals, probably usually presented as and to Persons[corporations], the right to do things like buy and sell goods, utilizing ports and State scrip or coined currency which might be illegal technically otherwise in order to institute nationwide taxation schemes, or for example to allow agents for the souverain to kill or steal or act in piracy, or many other types of Action. Letters of Marque are what comes to mind.

"UNALIENABLE"[cannot at all be given away, no LIENS.] The proper word is not "INALIENABLE" [can be sold by the man or woman such as indentured servitude, etc. rather than making it essentially a crime against humanity for a government to take a right.] Inalienable is used by governments and agents who would much prefer your rights be able to be bought and sold in our current era of legal theory.

-Northtexasfossilguy 8-5-2018

Need real legal citations on this
Greetings, I am concerned about the veracity of this article. While the term allodial undoubtedly exist[ed], I have serious doubts that true 'allodial' or absolute ownership even exists in the United States presently, at least not beyond fee simple (notably, the word "title" doesn't seem to appear at all in the Treaty of Paris.) If it does, it must not be particularly prevalent. Can someone cite a modern treatise, or modern case law that supports its importance -or need- for such a lengthy discussion? If not, I'm going to remove uncited portions of this text, pursuant to WP:CITE after some time has passed. Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 00:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Further, the concept of "inalienable" property seems quite contrary to the Common Law system which seems to frown on significant restraints on alienability. Lazulilasher (talk) 01:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm only a first year law student, but from what I've learned so far it is considered against public policy for land to have a restraint on alienability. Some implicit restraints are allowed to stand for various reasons, but explicit prohibitions are typically voided as a matter of common law within the United States. KenBest (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * apparently, wp:soap of Ron Paul set, and tax resisters, notwithstanding . i would like to see more about France and Germany for which there are historical examples: Count palatine; Franche-Comté; Freiherr; Brunswick-Lüneburg, etc. cheers  Accotink2  talk 23:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Were my copy not in storage at this time, I would cite a legislative proposal drafted by the University of Iowa's College of Law in the early 1990s as it addressed the question of individuals' ownership of their body. Ostensibly drafted as a remedy to the shortage of organs donated for transplant, it was sent to the House of Representatives and was received with enthusiasm by members of the party then in majority there; a fluke of history/current events kept it from coming to the floor of the house at end of session.

Essentially, said legislation would have had it that a citizen's organs are the presumptive property of the Federal government postmortem, to wit: unless the decedent had stipulated in writing that his/her organs were not to be harvested, or that they were to be donated to a specific non-governmental institution, his/her organs would become the property of the Federal government to harvest and dispose of as it saw fit. The family of such specifically-intestate decedent could not block the seizure of their loved one's organs.

No mention of the allodial principle was made in the debate that produced the UI proposal, but the question (posed above) is surely legitimate and deserved an answer. I hope this helps.

24.8.178.172 (talk) 15:15, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

What is this article about?
If this is just about a type of possession why is the article so long? I would suggest the answer is given in the first sentence "Allodial title is a concept" - so it is not just a legal definition it is a concept. Well, what is that concept and whose concept is it? I would propose that the basic themes to structure the article should be: --Utinomen (talk) 19:50, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Origins of the system in Germanic law, what it actually meant during that period
 * Why it disappeared/changed in some parts of the Germanic world, such as England
 * The history of the political interpetation, i.e. as part of development of concept of supposed early Anglo-Saxon liberty
 * Subsequent political use as a concept, such as in newly established USA


 * i added some history from the german wiki article Accotink2  talk 15:01, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * i added refs to nevada section, but it is a cut a paste job from ; it needs a copyedit. Accotink2  talk 16:20, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

England
Some one had tagged the statement that all land in England is held of the crown as dubious. The statement is in fact correct, but since most land is held in socage for an estate in fee simple, the rights of the crown as feudal superior are at best elusory. Nevertheless, the land will revert to the crown as bona vacantia on a death intestate without close relatives. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oddly, bona vacantia is evidence against any sort of subsisting survival of the rights of the Crown as feudal superior. The reason for this is extremely technical.


 * Land is real property. Chattels, money etc are personal property. For historical reasons, leases count as personal property. Until 1925, if a person died intestate (i.e. without a will) their real property passed to their heir, and their personal property did not. It was distributed under rules of intestacy. If a person had no heir, the land did then revert to the lord of the fee, who would usually, but in theory not invariably, be the Crown. This process was known as escheat. The tenure died. The land remained in the hands of whoever the person was of whom it was held.


 * If a person died with no one entitled to their personal property, those were bona vacantia, 'vacant goods'. The Crown claimed them because there was nowhere else for them to go.


 * One of the reforms in 1925, was that descent of real and personal property would thereafter be governed by the same rules, and those were to be the ones that apply (with some modernisation) to personal property. So escheat ceased to exist. If a person dies with no will and no kin, the whole lot goes to the Crown as bona vacantia. --Browne-Windsor (talk) 20:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is essentially a semantic issue. This may indeed be the effect of the 1925 legislation, but if it was intented to convert all land to allods, I would have expected there to be some express provision.  If you can find a source in an academic work for what you have said, I would suggest that you add something to that effect to the article - that under the 1925 property legislation the right of escheat disappeared, so that all land in England in effect became allodal.  However, I suspect you will find that there is also a contrary academci view, in which case this should also be mentioned.   Peterkingiron (talk) 20:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The 1925 legislation did not make all land in England and Wales allodial. All land is still notionally held of a feudal lord, who is usually the Crown. The cumulative effect of time and legislation means that there aren't very many remaining consequences of that doctrine.--Browne-Windsor (talk) 10:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I rather agree. This is a largely semantic question.  However, there is a difference between land ownership in US and England.  In US, constitutionally, the government cannot derogate from a citizen's ownership right, for example by requiring the preservation of a historic building; that object can only be achieved by giving tax incentives to do the right thing.  In England, the state regularly derogates from a citizen's rights, by imposing new obligations, such as through the planning system.  This is because in UK Parliament is sovereign, where as in US the constitution is.  BTW, The feudal lord may be the crown or the lord of a manor; and there may be several levels of mesne lordship, below the crown,  However, this is merely of historic interest and the decent of some mesne lordships cannot be traced beyond the late medieval period, because it was essentially an empty title.  Peterkingiron (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Brown-Windsor is wrong to say that escheat ceased to exist - it did not. As the Law Commission discovered when investigating the present land law before proposing what became the Land Registration Act 2002, several hundred fee simple estates cease to exist and the land escheats to the Crown in demesne. This _is_ a consequence of holding in fee simple and has practical effect for those who (say) own leaseholds from limited company freeholders. In insolvency the limited company's freehold could well be disclaimed and the freehold then fall by escheat into Crown demesne. Francis Davey (talk) 09:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You now need to examine the effect of CFR on that thesis: Nations are now forced to compensate where such dospossessions occur. CFR has preeminence over National Law by virtue both of its Constitutional nature under English Law and as International Law through its embodiment in the Treaty of Lisbon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.96.143.179 (talk) 20:44, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The Charter of Fundamental Rights doesn't have any effect on English land law - certainly not of that kind. In any case, its irrelevant. Escheat is not a deprivation of property from anyone. It only occurs (now) when the property is already in the hands of the Crown and is disclaimed by the Official Solicitor, so there is no need to compensate anyone. Francis Davey (talk) 11:45, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Copyright problem
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Disputed
This article makes very little sense, and is poorly sourced. See 80% of this talk page for proof. Accordingly, I have added the Disputed template. --Alx xlA (talk) 04:53, 14 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree. I'm considering a nomination for deletion. I am unsure if "alloidal title" (as an alternative to fee simple) really exists. I have been unable to find a reference in any legal treatise. Lazulilasher (talk) 21:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The Thomas Jefferson reference above suggests that the idea of "allodial title" to land was something that he employed. I suspect - though I do not know - that it must have had some currency in US jurisprudential discussions at some time, even if not now. That suggests to me that the term is of some importance, if only we could get a reasonable authoritative source for it. Jefferson is, as far as I can tell, applying a good deal of spin to the reality of the pre-conquest situation in England, so he can't be taken as a source for that period of legal history, but he is a good source for the way that (some only maybe) US lawyers thought about it. Francis Davey (talk) 08:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Dartmouth College
Right now, this article says, "In fact, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a New Hampshire law that attempted to revoke the land grant to Dartmouth College from King George III was unconstitutional." But that is not at all the ruling. The Supreme Court ruled that the state did not have the right under the Constitution to change the charter of the charitable corporation that owned Dartmouth College. This was an issue regarding the contract between the original donors of the land and the private charitable corporation established to own and operate Dartmouth college. The following sums up the real issues in this case. "This is plainly a contract to which the donors, the trustees and the crown (to whose rights and obligations New Hampshire succeeds) were the original *parties. It is a contract made on a valuable consideration. It is a contract for the security and disposition of property. It is a contract, on the faith of which, real and personal estate has been conveyed to the corporation. It is, then, a contract within the letter of the constitution, and within its spirit also, unless the fact, that the property is invested by the donors in trustees, for the promotion of religion and education, for the benefit of persons who are perpetually changing, though the objects remain the same, shall create a particular exception, taking this case out of the prohibition contained in the constitution."

So, I am going to change that original sentence to, "Although in Dartmouth College v. Woodward the United States Supreme Court rebuffed New Hampshire's attempt to convert Dartmouth College from a private college into a public university, the Court decided this based on the Constitution prohibiting states from impairing the obligations of the contract that created the private corporation that owned the land, and not based on any principle that the land was somehow immune from state control." DavidForthoffer (talk) 21:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Allod as separate article
I agree with the above comments that this article is a bit of a mess and the title rather odd. I therefore propose to create a separate article entitled "allod" which will confine itself mainly to the medieval term covering freehold property, leaving this article to focus on the legal term "allodial title". --Bermicourt (talk) 06:00, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Merger tag
I have removed the two merger tags at allod and allodial title for the following reasons:
 * The merger proposal was not set up properly; each tag points to a different talk page and no reason for the merger is given
 * There is a long-running factual dispute at "allodial title" which ought to be resolved before any merger is proposed
 * Their coverage is different and so the proposal fails WP:MERGE criteria. "Allod" focusses on the medieval term in Europe; "allodial title" mainly on modern US practice. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:40, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

RS to consider
I have never heard of this term FYI. I looked up some RS on Lexis. Below are the first titles that come up. It looks like the greatest interest in this has to do with Australia.


 * 10 Int'l Legal Persp. 39:  ABORIGINAL TITLE: "AN OVERGROWN AND POORLY EXCAVATEDARCHEOLOGICAL SITE"?, Julie Cassidy*, Oregon, Jan 01, 1998.  Conclusion:
 * From the above discussion of aboriginal title it is hopefully apparent that the relevant legal principles continue to be uncertain, particularly in Australia. Many important questions remain unanswered. Is the Crown bound by a fiduciary duty to safeguard aboriginal interests? Can the aboriginal title be extinguished without the consent of the traditional owners and without any compensation? Other statements made by the Courts in Mabo and Wik have yet to be critically examined by the Australian courts. These include whether aboriginal title may be extinguished by implication and whether statute of limitations or laches may be pleaded in defense to aboriginal claims. It is hoped that when these matter come to be reconsidered in Australia, the courts will take greater heed of the United States, Canadian and New Zealand jurisprudence which, as the above discussion indicates, will provide invaluable guidance.


 * 29 Melbourne U. L.R. 1, DISINTERESTED TRUTH: LEGITIMATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF TENURE POST-MABO, SAMANTHA HEPBURN, Apr 01, 2005.


 * The allodial land system was introduced in the United States by Thomas Jefferson as a vital component of the move towards republicanism. The allodial system was intended to fully and completely abolish not just the feudal infrastructure, but the entire feudal narrative. The rationale for this was simple: feudal tenure had outlived its ideological usefulness.   The emergence of the republican movement coincided with the developing acceptance within the new world' of property rights as a societal construction, capable of representing and reflecting changing community perspectives.   The shift from tenure to allodialism in the United States encouraged a more culturally sensitive approach to Native American rights. The discovery title' retained by American colonists effectively gave the discovering nation' absolute title over the land, despite the fact that it was still in the possession of the  [34]  natives'.    Nevertheless, Marshall CJ noted that the rights of the Native Americans were not entirely disregarded.'    His Honour held that the original inhabitants retained a right of occupancy -- that is, a title which was good against all but the sovereign and could be terminated only by sovereign act.


 * Articles: Towards a Reconsideration of the Doctrines of Estates and Tenure, 1996 APLJ LEXIS 6.  1996

--David Tornheim (talk) 00:59, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Allodial title in Shetland & Orkney Islands, Isle of Man, Nevada, and perhaps in the Pacific
Allodial land title, now rare, is absolute title and not "held of the Crown," e.g., not in fee or in feu as in the feudal system or derived legal systems. In pure form, no "service" to any lord (including the sovereign) is required, either knight-service or, later, rates (land tax). There is little or no allodial land remaining in England or Wales, which were brought into the feudal system after William the Conqueror, and more recently land registration, nor was any ever recognised in the feudal Channel Islands. In Scotland there is allodial land title in parts of the Shetland Islands and the Orkney Islands, mostly in the weakened form of Udal title, and it is an ordinary form of land title in the Isle of Man. These areas came to the U.K. from Norse sources, not Anglo-Saxon or Norman. In the United States, all states and the District of Columbia have most private land "in fee simple" (or its variants) which is not allodial and is subject to land tax, escheats and eminent domain, as in the feudal precursor. Some American states like Nevada enacted statutes that created limited forms of allodial title (whether or not under that name) that is exempt from rates/land tax. See main article. Exemption of such statutorily allodial land from eminent domain is theoretical and has not been litigated in American courts. Certain United States Minor Outlying Islands in the Pacific Ocean arguably have allodial title (private land that is not subject to land tax, escheat, adverse possession or eminent domain) such as Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef (legally disputed), and approximately 80 parcels of "freehold" land in American Samoa, outside traditional Samoan tenure, that were grandfathered after its acquisition from Germany in the 1899 Tripartite Convention. Possibly-allodial title was abolished in 2000 at Pitcairn Island by expropriating all private land; see Pitcairn Islands LAND TENURE REFORM Ordinance http://www.government.pn/Laws/Land%20Tenure%20Reform%20Ordinance.pdf (None of these examples have anything to do with American "Sovereign Citizen" legal theories.) 2605:6000:ED0D:9E00:6DFD:C207:1B3A:1B55 (talk) 10:48, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Possible exceptions to statement in lede that "In the United States...there is thus no true allodial land."
Article lede says "In the United States, the land is subject to eminent domain by federal, state and local government, and subject to the imposition of taxes by state and/or local governments, and there is thus no true allodial land."

I think of some possible exceptions:

Land owned by the federal government is not subject to eminent domain or to the imposition of taxes by state and/or local government.

State governments also lack the power of eminent domain over railroads. However, because Amtrak has the right to run its trains on their tracks, which is essentially a federal right of partial eminent domain to use the property even if not to take it (Amtrak is nominally an public corporation but effectively an agency of the federal government), I would not consider them allodial.

Diplomatic installations (embassies, consulates, missions to the UN, etc.) might also be an exception, but they are technically foreign soil, and therefore don't really count as "in the United States".

Guantanamo Bay is a somewhat unique situation in that the U.S. has "jurisdiction" but not "sovereignty" (the treaty specifies that Cuba retains sovereignty), so I'm not sure what rights a private landowner would have, but since the federal government owns the land anyway, it's somewhat of a moot point. 47.139.41.212 (talk) 22:54, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Lord paramount
is presumably the same idea? — Llywelyn II   14:08, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Not in Florida
Does anybody know why an Allodial title can not be put on a property in Florida? Dee.lite (talk) 15:56, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * There are properties in Florida with that status. for example Trump properties. 23.24.167.1 (talk) 14:09, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Nevada section removed
Most of the section was "how to" instructions (WP:NOTHOWTO), constructed from a single ecommerce source and a series of primary sources (Nevada Revised Statutes). The ecommerce source, Nevada Corporate Planners, is a company which sells Nevada incorporation products. As such, they are not a reliable source for this information (WP:VENDOR). However, researching further out of curiosity, it seems NCP posted this entry by 2001. In 2012 they had marked the page "You Must Have Applied Before June 13, 2005", and by the following year (2013) the page had been scrubbed from their website (per Wayback Machine). As it turns out, in 2005 Nevada revoked the "allodial title" provisions. In other words, the "how to" information is irrelevant to the reader today, and we have no reliable source to leave any remaining content about "what was" (from 1997-2005). ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 22:59, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Removed unsourced sections
Feel free to use this content if you come up with some reliable sources/citations. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 05:16, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Development of equitable title
As late as the Tudor period, in order to avoid estate taxes, a legal loophole was exploited where land was willed to a trustee for the use of the beneficiary. However, trustees often abused this privilege, and heirs found that the courts of common law would refuse to recognize the "use" clause, and would instead grant title in law to the trustee. However, the courts of equity, which were developed by the sovereign to deal with obvious injustices in the common law courts, ruled that the heirs were entitled to the use of the property, and gave them title in equity. As rulings of equity courts ranked above those of common law courts, this gave heirs the use of the land, but not title to it in the common law.

However, this distinction between common law and equity title helped develop forms of security based on the distinction, now known as the mortgage. Enjoyment of the property during the period where the mortgage was in good standing could be assured through the equity courts, while the right to foreclose on the property to merge the common law and equity title were guaranteed in the common law courts.

Proof of ownership
Until the 18th century, almost all common law property ownership depended on proving a link of possession from a royal grant of title to the property owner. Although the feudal system had ceased from England in 1660, and is now fee simple taxation, in theory the feudal chain of title still exists, although it is a formality.

However, proving ownership in the absence of the documents was an impossibility, and forgeries of crown grants were common and difficult to detect. Moreover, it was nearly impossible to determine if land was subject to common law encumbrances (i.e. mortgages). This led to the establishment in the 18th century of land registry systems, where a central office in each county was responsible for the filing of land deeds, mortgages, liens and other evidence of ownership, transfer or encumbrance. Under land registry, deeds and charges were not recognized unless they were filed, and persons who filed were given priority over previous transactions that had not been filed. Moreover, under statutes of limitation, in certain jurisdictions only documents that had been filed in the past 40 years had to be consulted to determine the chain of ownership.

United States
Before 1774, all land in the American colonies could also be traced to royal grants, either a single enormous grant creating each proprietary colony (e.g. Pennsylvania and Maryland), or smaller direct grants within crown colonies (e.g. Virginia). The original grantee (recipient of the land) then sold or granted parcels of land within his grant to private citizens and other legal entities. The Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended formal hostilities and recognized American independence, also had the effect of ending any residual rights held by the original grantees or the Crown. This recognized that no person holding land in the new United States owed any allegiance or duty to the Crown.

Apart from land that was formally owned at the time of the Revolutionary War, most American landholders can trace their title back to grants by the federal or state governments of land obtained by purchase (Louisiana Purchase, Florida, Alaska), treaty (the Ohio Valley, New Mexico, Arizona, and California), or annexation (Texas, Hawaii). However, in reality, grants made prior to those territories becoming U.S. possessions were recognized; ownership under French and Spanish crown grants in the Louisiana Purchase and Guadalupe-Hidalgo/Gadsden territories remained valid. Although in Dartmouth College v. Woodward the United States Supreme Court rebuffed New Hampshire's attempt to convert Dartmouth College from a private college into a public university, the Court decided this was based on the Constitution prohibiting states from impairing the obligations of the contract which created the private corporation that owned the land, and not based on any principle that the land was somehow immune from state control.

Many state constitutions (Arkansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York) refer to allodial title, but only to clearly distinguish it from feudal title. The conditions under which the government can compel the sale of privately owned real property for public necessity are established by eminent domain laws of either the federal or state governments, respectively. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires just compensation for eminent domain compelled sale. In addition, the government powers of police power and escheat have been retained in the American legal system.

Limited allodial title
Other institutional property ownership can also be called allodial, in that property granted for certain uses is held absolutely and cannot be alienated in most circumstances. For example, universities and colleges that hold property for educational purposes can be described as having allodial title. In most states, property held by churches for the purpose of worship also has status similar to allodial title. Native American reservations also share some similarity with allodial title. However, in all these cases, it is also clear that if the title ceases to be used for the purposes for which it was granted, it reverts to the state or the federal government.