Michael T Tracy

Sasines of the Buist Family Michael T Tracy

Land deeds in Scotland are referred to as "Sasine's." The term means either the symbolic act of giving legal possession of a piece of heritable property, or the instrument by which such an act was proved to have happened. The origin of the word is the same as the word "seize" meaning to take possession of (in Scottish documents it is generally rendered "seis"). Hence, for example, in an abridgement of a sasine, someone who became the owner of a property (by succession, gift, purchase or whatever) is recorded as being "seized" of that property. This land deed or sasine is a legal agreement, obligation or other document registered with a court. In the older generations of the Buist family, the giving of sasines was a ceremony deriving from a time when few people were literate and it was thus highly symbolic so that anyone could see and recognize what was going on. The grantee's baillie would meet the granter's baillie on the ground of the lands being granted, with several witnesses and a notary, present the grantee's title to the lands (his charter and precept of sasine from the granter) and ask that sasine be given; these would be passed to the notary who would read them to the witnesses, and then the granter's baillie would give sasine by presenting the grantee's baillie with a symbol appropriate to what was being granted, so that the witnesses could understand that ownership had been formally transferred. The notary would return and write up the document. This was done to establish a legal right. In later times, in registering the deed, the person presenting it paid a fee to a court clerk who copied the document into the register and then kept the original document. This original document was called the warrant. The warrant will show the original signatures of the parties of the deed. In copying the document, many clerks also made a brief note of the entry in a quite separate minute book. Once registered, the parties received certified extracts of the document.