Definition
Ab invito (Latin: "by or from an unwilling party") describes an act, transfer, or transaction carried out without the consent of the party upon whom it operates — or actively against that party's will. The phrase most commonly appears in property law to characterize compulsory transfers: those imposed by legal process, operation of law, or governmental authority rather than by the free choice of the transferor. A transfer ab invito is a compulsory transfer.
Common Language
Wiktionary: "Against one's will; not of one's invitation."
Editorial note: The common usage tracks the legal meaning closely, but the legal application is narrower and more technical. In ordinary speech, "against one's will" suggests coercion in a broad sense. In legal usage, ab invito specifically characterizes the legal character of a transfer or act — distinguishing it from voluntary conveyances — and carries consequences for questions of consent, liability, and the validity of transactions. A party may act under economic pressure and still convey voluntarily in law; ab invito signals something more formal: compulsion imposed by legal process or operation of law.
Common Confusion
Ab invito is sometimes loosely conflated with in invitum, a closely related Latin phrase. The distinction, though subtle, matters in research: ab invito describes the character of a transfer or act (done by or from an unwilling party), while in invitum refers to an action taken against an unwilling person — typically appearing in the context of obligations or remedies imposed on a party who has not consented. Burrill's Law Dictionary cross-references the two phrases explicitly. Researchers encountering either term in historical sources should verify which phrase the author uses and consult both entries, as older treatises are not always consistent in their application.
Why It Matters in Research
Ab invito is a term of art that surfaces primarily in older property law materials, equity treatises, and historical discussions of compulsory transfers. Modern legal writing rarely uses the Latin phrase, preferring "involuntary transfer," "compulsory conveyance," or "transfer by operation of law." Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should treat ab invito as a signal pointing toward historical sources: its presence in a document often indicates 19th-century or earlier drafting, or an author writing in a classical common law tradition.
The phrase appears in contexts including eminent domain (the sovereign taking property from an unwilling owner), intestate succession (property passing without a will and without the decedent's active direction), judicial sales, and certain liens and encumbrances imposed by law. In each of these contexts, the ab invito character of the transfer has legal significance — particularly for questions of warranty, title quality, and the rights of subsequent purchasers.
Researchers should also note that the phrase can appear in discussions of agency and contract, where an obligation arising ab invito is distinguished from one arising by consent, affecting questions of ratification and liability.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement: all three sources offer virtually identical definitions, each rendering the phrase as "by or from an unwilling party" and illustrating it with the same example of a compulsory transfer. This uniformity reflects the term's stability as a piece of classical legal Latin — it carried a settled meaning across the common law tradition and generated no meaningful doctrinal controversy at the definitional level.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the range of legal contexts in which ab invito operates. The spare, one-sentence definitions in these sources were written for an audience already familiar with Latin legal terminology and the common law property system. Modern researchers unfamiliar with that tradition may underestimate how broadly the concept applies — beyond property transfers into contract, agency, and equity — based on the dictionary entries alone. Burrill's cross-reference to in invitum is the most useful navigational aid the historical sources provide.
Jurisdictional Note
The concept underlying ab invito — compulsory or involuntary transfer — is universal across common law jurisdictions, but the Latin phrase itself is far more common in English and older American legal writing than in modern American practice. Researchers working in civil law or mixed jurisdictions should note that the term does not map cleanly onto civil law categories of involuntary obligations.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Involuntary Transfers
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Eminent Domain and Compulsory Acquisition
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Transfer by Operation of Law