Definition
The bargainor is the party to a bargain or contract who is obligated to deliver the subject matter — typically property — and in exchange receives the agreed consideration. In real property transactions, the bargainor is the seller or grantor who conveys an interest in land through a bargain and sale deed. The term operates as the counterpart to the bargainee, who is the receiving party.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): One who makes a bargain or contract with another, especially to sell property.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who makes a bargain, or contracts with another; especially, one who sells, or contracts to sell, property to another.
The gap between common and legal usage here is narrow but worth noting. In ordinary language, a "bargainor" could refer to either party who strikes a deal. In legal usage, the term is directional: the bargainor is specifically the party who delivers property and receives payment, not the party who pays and receives the property. A researcher using the term loosely risks misidentifying which party bears the delivery obligation.
Common Confusion
BARGAINOR vs. VENDOR vs. GRANTOR: These terms overlap heavily in conveyancing practice and are often used interchangeably in historical sources, but they carry distinct technical freight. A vendor is the seller in any contract of sale, not necessarily one who has already executed a deed. A grantor executes a deed of conveyance. A bargainor is specifically identified with the bargain and sale deed form — a term of art in equity and early property law. In modern practice, "grantor" has largely displaced "bargainor" in drafting and case law, so historical sources using "bargainor" may refer to relationships now described in entirely different vocabulary.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter "bargainor" most often in materials concerning the bargain and sale deed, a form of conveyance with roots in the Statute of Uses (1535) that operated by raising a use rather than by livery of seisin. The term is therefore heavily concentrated in equity and property sources from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries and appears with diminishing frequency as "grantor" became the dominant term in American and English practice.
Several research traps apply. First, historical sources do not always distinguish clearly between a bargainor who has merely contracted to convey and one who has already executed a deed. Whether the bargain and sale is executory or executed matters for questions of title, implied covenants, and risk of loss. Second, in jurisdictions that have modernized their deed forms or adopted statutory warranty deed frameworks, the term "bargainor" may appear in older chains of title without a clear analog in current statutory language — a researcher must trace the applicable conveyancing statute to understand what covenants, if any, the historical bargainor made. Third, because the bargain and sale deed historically conveyed only what the bargainor had without warranting title, the absence of an express warranty clause in instruments using this terminology is legally significant and should not be read as a drafting omission.
Corpus connections: materials on the Statute of Uses, bargain and sale deeds, implied covenants in conveyancing, and early equity practice are the natural neighbors. The term also appears in commercial contexts outside real property — bills of sale, chattel transfers — where the same directional logic applies.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Bouvier's are in agreement on the core definition, and both entries are consistent with Webster's 1913 gloss, suggesting that by the time these dictionaries were compiled, the term had stabilized. Black's frames the definition around performance — the bargainor "is to perform the contract by delivery" — which usefully emphasizes the executory dimension. Bouvier adds the explicit pairing of delivery and receipt of consideration, capturing the bilateral character of the relationship.
Neither historical dictionary entry discusses the Statute of Uses context, the distinction between executory and executed bargains, or the question of implied warranty — all of which matter significantly for practical research. Researchers should treat these entries as starting points, not endpoints, and consult the conveyancing treatise literature for the doctrine that surrounds the term.
Jurisdictional Note
The bargain and sale deed form was inherited by American jurisdictions from English equity practice and was in common use in many states through the nineteenth century. Some states retain the form by statute; others have replaced it with standardized warranty or quitclaim deed forms. In states where the bargain and sale deed survives, the legal significance of the bargainor's obligations — particularly regarding implied covenants — varies by statute and case law.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Bargain and Sale Deed; Conveyancing; Statute of Uses