Definition
Entailed money is money that a court or legal instrument has directed to be invested in real property, with that property then settled as an entail — meaning it is conveyed to a person and the heirs of their body, with alienation restricted. The concept arises from equity's power to convert the character of property: once the direction to purchase and entail land is established, the money is treated in law as if it had already been converted into the intended real estate. This doctrine is a specific application of the equitable principle of conversion, by which property is regarded as having the nature it is destined to assume rather than the nature it currently holds.
The term appears almost exclusively in the context of English real property law, particularly as regulated by the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833 (3 & 4 Wm. IV. c. 74), which overhauled the law of fee tail and provided statutory procedures governing entailed interests, including the treatment of money directed toward the creation of such interests.
Common Confusion
Entailed money should not be confused with money held under a general trust for investment, nor with money subject to a strict settlement that does not specifically require entailment of the resulting land. The critical feature of entailed money is the specific direction that the purchased realty shall itself be entailed — not merely held in trust or settled in some other form. Researchers should also distinguish the term from "entailed estate" or "estate tail," which describe the real property interest itself rather than money awaiting conversion into it.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a narrow technical relic of English land law and appears almost entirely in sources predating the 20th century. Researchers encountering it should note several navigational points.
First, the operative legal framework is the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833. Sections 70, 71, and 72 of that Act specifically address entailed money, and no meaningful analysis of the term is possible without reference to that statute. Historical sources that cite the term without citing the Act are likely paraphrasing it.
Second, the concept depends entirely on the doctrine of equitable conversion. A court of equity would treat the money as already being land for purposes of succession, dower, curtesy, and the rights of the heir entail — even before any purchase was made. This had significant practical consequences for determining who took the property upon death and whether the person entitled to the money could bar or modify the direction.
Third, entailed money has essentially no modern application in either English or American law. Fee tail was abolished or converted to fee simple in virtually every American jurisdiction by statute, and England curtailed entails through the Law of Property Act 1925. Any corpus research encounter with this term should be presumed to involve pre-1926 English law or early American colonial and state law jurisdictions that had not yet abolished entail.
Fourth, the Rapalje & Lawrence entry contains an apparent textual corruption — the definition runs into what appears to be text from a separate entry on banking and bills, beginning with "and allow him at once to draw upon them." Researchers using that source should treat the entailed money definition as concluding with the citation to 3 & 4 Wm. IV. c. 74.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's Law Dictionary and Rapalje & Lawrence offer identical definitions: money directed to be invested in realty to be entailed. Both cite the same statutory authority — sections 70, 71, and 72 of 3 & 4 Wm. IV. c. 74 — and neither elaborates on the underlying doctrine of equitable conversion that makes the concept coherent. Neither source explains what consequences flow from money having this character, how the direction to entail arises, or how the interest could be barred. For that analytical substance, researchers must look beyond dictionary sources to treatises on real property and equity, such as Sugden on Powers or Joshua Williams's Principles of the Law of Real Property (various 19th-century editions), which address entailed interests and conversion in context.
The uniform brevity of both dictionary entries reflects the term's technical narrowness: it is a designation, not a doctrine with contested elements.
Jurisdictional Note
Entailed money is a creature of English equity and statute. American jurisdictions abolished fee tail early — most by the late 18th or early 19th century — and therefore never developed a parallel body of law around money directed to be invested in entailed realty. Researchers working in American sources will rarely if ever encounter operative use of this term outside of historical or treatise contexts discussing inherited English doctrine.