Definition
A aver et tener (Law French; Latin: habendum et tenendum) means "to have and to hold." It is the traditional formula appearing in the habendum clause of a deed or conveyance, expressing the grant of an estate in land to the grantee and defining the extent and duration of the interest conveyed. The complete phrase, as preserved in Coke on Littleton, reads: a aver et tener a luy et a ses heires, a touts jours — "to have and to hold to him and his heirs forever" — which was the standard formula for conveying a fee simple absolute under the old common law of real property.
The phrase functioned as the operative words of the habendum clause, following the premises of the deed (which named the grantor, grantee, and consideration) and the tenendum clause. Together these clauses completed the formal transfer of seisin and defined what estate passed: whether a fee simple, a fee tail, a life estate, or some lesser interest.
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Common Language
This is pure legal jargon drawn from Law French and Latin. There is no common English usage of this phrase outside historical legal instruments. The COMMON LANGUAGE section does not apply.
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Common Confusion
A aver et tener is frequently encountered in close proximity to — and sometimes conflated with — the related phrase aver et tener alone (without the prefixed "A"), which appears as a standalone entry in the same historical dictionaries. The distinction is formal rather than substantive: both render habendum et tenendum, and both trace to the same clausal tradition. Researchers should treat the two entries as cross-references to a single underlying concept rather than as terms with independent meanings.
The habendum clause and the tenendum clause were once treated as distinct components of a deed. In later practice they merged into a single formula, with the tenendum clause becoming largely vestigial. The habendum clause — introduced by "to have and to hold" — survived as the operative language defining the estate granted.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in historical legal materials: medieval and early modern English deeds, colonial American conveyances, treatises on real property, and instructional texts derived from Coke on Littleton. Researchers working in pre-nineteenth-century property law records should recognize it as deed boilerplate signaling the habendum clause, not as a term with variable or contested meaning.
The key research trap is encountering this phrase in a historical deed and treating the habendum clause as merely ceremonial. Under classical common law, the habendum clause could qualify, limit, or even contradict the estate named in the premises of the deed — courts developed elaborate rules for resolving conflicts between the two parts of an instrument. A conveyance "to A and his heirs" in the premises, followed by a habendum limiting the estate to A for life, created genuine interpretive problems. Researchers working on historical title disputes or property litigation must read the full deed rather than relying on the premises clause alone.
The phrase also marks a boundary between Law French conveyancing practice and the shift toward plain English statutory forms. Many American jurisdictions, beginning in the nineteenth century, enacted conveyancing acts allowing short-form deeds that dispensed with habendum language entirely, or implied the appropriate estate without it. When researching a title chain that crosses this transitional period, the presence or absence of a aver et tener language may signal which formal regime governs.
Cross-reference to habendum et tenendum (the Latin equivalent) is essential: historical dictionaries and treatises use both forms, and index searches in the Law Mind corpus should run both phrases to capture the full range of sources.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st Ed.), Burrill's, and Black's (2nd Ed.) are in complete agreement on this term — all three define it identically as the Law French equivalent of the Latin habendum et tenendum, cite the same sections of Coke on Littleton (§§ 523, 524, and 625), and supply the same extended example phrase. This uniformity reflects the frozen, formulaic character of the term: it had no contested meaning and generated no doctrinal debate. The dictionaries treat it as a vocabulary gloss rather than a term requiring analysis.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the substantive doctrine governing habendum clauses — the rules for resolving conflicts between premises and habendum, the effect of omitting the clause, or the treatment of repugnant limitations. For that analysis, researchers must turn to treatises on real property, particularly Coke on Littleton directly, or later systematic treatments such as Blackstone's Commentaries Book II, or American works on conveyancing.
Burrill's entry is materially identical to both Black's editions, confirming that all three drew from the same source tradition. The minor spelling variant (a lay versus a luy in Black's 2nd Ed.) is a typographical artifact of that edition and carries no interpretive significance.
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Jurisdictional Note
The formula was common to English and colonial American conveyancing practice. American jurisdictions diverged significantly in the nineteenth century as statutory short-form deeds reduced or eliminated the need for formal habendum language. Researchers should verify whether the jurisdiction and period in question required, permitted, or had already abolished the formal habendum clause before drawing conclusions about any particular instrument.
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