Definition
A phrase of qualification appearing in a devise of real property, directing that the land passes to the devisee in the condition as cultivated, developed, or otherwise physically improved by the occupying tenants at the time of the testator's death — rather than in its raw or unimproved state. The phrase describes the scope of what is conveyed: the devisee receives not merely the bare land but the land together with the physical improvements made upon it by those who have worked or occupied it, including cleared fields, erected structures, drainage works, and similar ameliorations attributable to tenant labor or investment.
The phrase functions as a descriptive modifier within the devising clause of a will. It is not a condition or limitation on the devise but a characterization of the property's physical extent or character at the time of transfer. Courts have treated it as clarifying what the testator understood the estate to consist of at the moment of bequest.
Common Confusion
"As it has been improved by tenants" should not be read as a limitation equivalent to phrases like "as long as" or "while occupied by tenants," which introduce conditional or durational elements into a grant and may define an estate's duration. The phrase here is descriptive, not conditional — it does not cause the devise to terminate if tenants depart or if improvements are later removed. Researchers working with early American testamentary instruments should be alert to this distinction, as surrounding language in period documents can blur the line between description and condition.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears almost exclusively in early American and colonial-era wills and grants, most commonly in agricultural or mixed-use property contexts where tenants had substantially altered the land's character through labor. Its legal significance was largely resolved by the early nineteenth century and is rarely encountered in modern drafting or litigation.
For corpus researchers, the primary research trap is misreading the phrase as creating a tenancy condition or a defeasible estate. It does not. The single historical authority referenced in Rapalje & Lawrence — 2 Mass. 394 — anchors this phrase to early Massachusetts appellate construction of devises, and researchers working with New England testamentary records from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries will find this the relevant jurisdictional context. The phrase appears in instruments from a period when tenant improvement of agricultural land was both economically significant and legally consequential to property valuation and devolution.
Researchers using this phrase as a search term in historical deed or probate archives should note that variant forms appear, including "as the same hath been improved" and "as improved by the tenants thereof." These variants carry equivalent meaning and should be treated as functionally synonymous for research purposes.
The phrase has no modern analog in standard conveyancing practice. Contemporary instruments accomplish the same descriptive function through property surveys, title reports, and as-built descriptions. A researcher encountering this phrase in a post-1870 document should treat it as an archaism or a direct quotation from an earlier instrument in the chain of title.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence treat this phrase briefly as a term of art specific to the devise of an estate, citing 2 Mass. 394 as the controlling authority. The entry is notable for what it does not say: it provides no definition of "improved," no discussion of what categories of tenant activity qualify, and no treatment of disputes over the extent of improvement. The brevity reflects the phrase's narrow and largely settled function in the period when the dictionary was compiled — by the late nineteenth century, this was already a declining term of art rather than an active area of litigation.
The pairing of this entry with "AS LONG AS" in the same dictionary passage is editorially suggestive. Rapalje & Lawrence appear to have grouped these sequential entries to highlight the contrast between a descriptive devise qualifier and a durational grant qualifier — a distinction that would have been practically important to practitioners reading wills and deeds containing both types of qualifying language.
No broader treatment of this specific phrase appears in Bouvier, Black, or other standard historical dictionaries, which confirms its status as a narrow term of limited application rather than a foundational concept in property law.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase's documented legal history is concentrated in Massachusetts and, more broadly, in New England jurisdictions with strong tenant-farming traditions in the late colonial and early federal periods. Researchers working with Southern or Mid-Atlantic agricultural records from the same era should not assume identical interpretive treatment, as tenancy structures and improvement doctrines varied regionally.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Devises and Bequests; Construction of Wills; Landlord and Tenant (Historical)