Definition
Formedon in the reverter was a common law real action available to a donor of a fee tail estate — or the donor's heirs or assigns — to recover land after the donee's line died out without issue. When land was conveyed in fee tail (a gift structured so that ownership descended only to bodily heirs), the donor retained a reversionary interest. If the donee and all bodily heirs died without issue, that reversion became possessory, and formedon in the reverter was the writ by which the reversioner demanded recovery of the land from whoever held it.
The action belonged to the broader family of formedon writs, all of which enforced rights derived from a "form of the gift" (forma donationis) — that is, the original terms under which a fee tail was created. Formedon in the reverter was distinguishable from its two sibling writs by the nature of the claimant's interest: here, the plaintiff claimed as reversioner, not as a remainderman or as a lineal heir of the donee.
To succeed, the demandant was required to plead and prove three things: the original gift in tail, the claimant's own right as derived from the donor, and the failure of heirs of the body of the donee. The writ thus required a complete narration of the tenurial history underlying the claim.
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Common Confusion
Formedon in the reverter is one of three formedon writs, and researchers frequently conflate them. Formedon in the descender lay for the heir of the donee claiming through the direct line of descent. Formedon in the remainder lay for a third party who held a remainder interest after the fee tail. Formedon in the reverter, by contrast, lay only for the donor's side — those entitled to receive the land back when the donee's bloodline failed. The distinction matters for historical pleading research: the form of the writ, the parties, and the pleading requirements differed across all three.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is an extinct action with no modern procedural counterpart, but it remains relevant in three research contexts.
First, it is essential for reading pre-nineteenth-century English real property cases and pleading records. Formedon writs were the standard vehicle for litigating fee tail rights from the medieval period through the abolition of real actions in England by the Real Property Limitation Act 1833 and the effective displacement of the writs by ejectment well before that. Researchers working with Year Books, Coke's Reports, or Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium will encounter these writs frequently.
Second, the action illuminates the conceptual architecture of future interests. Formedon in the reverter was the procedural enforcement mechanism for a reversion — the estate that returns to the grantor by operation of law. Understanding what the writ protected helps clarify what a reversion was and how it differed from a possibility of reverter (which arose from a fee simple determinable, not a fee tail) and a right of entry. Researchers who conflate these future interests in historical sources will misread case outcomes.
Third, American colonial and early republic property law inherited the English fee tail structure, and formedon writs appear in some American jurisdictions before legislative abolition of fee tail. Several states converted fee tails to fee simples by statute in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, effectively eliminating the factual predicate for formedon. The timing of that legislation varies by jurisdiction and determines whether formedon appears in early American legal records at all.
A trap in historical sources: Blackstone's Commentaries cite formedon in the reverter at both 3 Bl. Comm. 192 and 293, and Bouvier references 3 Bla. Com. 293 while Black's and Burrill cite 192. This discrepancy reflects different editions and pagination conventions in Blackstone reprints. Researchers should verify the edition in hand before citing page numbers from secondary sources.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Burrill's, and Bouvier's are in close agreement on the substance, all tracking Blackstone's formulation nearly verbatim. The core definition — gift in tail, failure of bodily heirs, reversion to the donor's line, writ to recover — is consistent across all three.
Burrill adds the Law French and Law Latin forms (formedon en le revertur; forma donationis en le reverti), which are useful for reading original writs or pleading records in those languages. Burrill also cites Roscoe's Real Actions alongside Blackstone and Fitzherbert, giving the entry a somewhat broader bibliographic base.
Bouvier provides the most complete pleading summary, specifying the three elements the demandant must allege: the gift, the claimant's own right as derived from the donor, and the failure of the donee's heirs. This pleading-focused gloss is the most practically useful passage across the three entries for a researcher analyzing historical court records.
None of the three dictionaries addresses the writ's historical obsolescence directly or explains the transition to ejectment as the functional substitute. For that arc, researchers should consult Maitland's historical work on real actions or Holdsworth's History of English Law.
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Jurisdictional Note
Formedon in the reverter was an English common law writ that was received into American colonial practice but never uniformly applied. American states that abolished fee tail by statute — which most had done by the early nineteenth century — eliminated the factual basis for the writ. The action has no continuing vitality in any modern American jurisdiction.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Future Interests — Reversion, Possibility of Reverter, Right of Entry (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia, property_5)
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