Definition
A resulting use is a use that arises by operation of law — without express declaration — in favor of a grantor who has conveyed legal seisin to another without consideration and without directing who should hold the beneficial interest. In the absence of a declared use and without evidence of donative intent, equity presumed that the grantor could not have intended to give up the beneficial interest along with the legal title. The use therefore "resulted back" — returned — to the grantor automatically.
The doctrine operated within the framework of the Statute of Uses (1535), which converted equitable uses into legal title. A resulting use, once recognized by equity, would be executed by the Statute just as any expressly declared use would be, thereby restoring legal title to the grantor as well.
The classic trigger: A conveys a freehold estate to B by feoffment, for no consideration, and declares no use. Equity raises a resulting use in A. The Statute executes it. A retakes legal title, and B holds nothing.
Common Confusion
RESULTING USE vs. RESULTING TRUST: These are parallel doctrines separated by historical period and legal instrument. The resulting use operated in the pre-modern law of real property under the Statute of Uses and applied to conveyances of freehold estates. As the Statute of Uses fell into disuse and the trust displaced the use as the operative concept, resulting trust became the functional successor doctrine. Today, courts and researchers will almost never encounter a live resulting use claim — but they will encounter resulting trusts governed by substantially similar equitable principles. Researchers who encounter resulting use in historical sources should not assume the modern resulting trust doctrine maps onto it without adjustment; the Statute of Uses created procedural and substantive distinctions that do not carry forward cleanly.
RESULTING USE vs. IMPLIED USE: Some historical sources use these terms interchangeably. The distinction, when drawn, is that an implied use may be inferred from the circumstances and partial declarations of the parties, while a resulting use arises strictly from the absence of any declaration and the failure of consideration. The overlap is real, and researchers should treat the terminology in older sources as unstable.
Core Elements
Equity would raise a resulting use when the following conditions were met:
1. Transfer of legal seisin. A freehold conveyance — typically by feoffment or lease and release — effectively passed legal title to the grantee.
2. No express declaration of use. The grantor did not declare who should hold the beneficial interest. A partial or failed declaration could also give rise to a resulting use as to the undeclared portion.
3. No valuable consideration. Where consideration passed, equity presumed the parties intended the grantee to hold the beneficial interest and would not raise a resulting use. Consideration rebutted the inference of retained beneficial ownership.
4. No other evidence of donative intent. If the grantor could demonstrate an intent to benefit the grantee, the resulting use would not arise. The doctrine filled the gap only where intent was genuinely absent or unascertainable.
Why It Matters in Research
RESULTING USE is primarily a historical term. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in sources predating the 19th century or in legal history scholarship. Its practical importance lies in three areas:
First, understanding chain-of-title disputes in early American and English land records. Conveyances made without proper declaration of use could have their beneficial ownership silently redirected by operation of equity. A title researcher working with pre-1800 instruments needs to know that apparent transfers of legal title may have been partially or wholly reversed by resulting use doctrine.
Second, tracing the doctrinal lineage of resulting trusts. The resulting trust is the modern inheritor of this equitable principle. Researchers working in trust litigation — especially purchase-money resulting trusts and failed express trust cases — will find that courts and commentators routinely cite the historical resulting use as the ancestor doctrine. The encyclopedia entries cross-referenced above address this lineage directly.
Third, navigating the Statute of Uses. The Statute of Uses is the essential context for any resulting use analysis. Without it, the use remained merely equitable; the Statute converted it into legal title. Any source discussing resulting uses without reference to the Statute is either treating the issue from a purely equitable standpoint or is working in a jurisdiction that never adopted the Statute (which affected American states differently). Jurisdictional attention is essential.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in substantial agreement on the core definition, though they differ in emphasis and depth.
Burrill's provides the most analytically precise account, stating flatly that a resulting use is one which "returns back to a party conveying an estate" and illustrating the mechanics with a clean hypothetical. Burrill correctly flags the Statute of Uses as the operative instrument that executes the resulting use into legal title — a point that Black's and Bouvier's treat less explicitly.
Bouvier's adds important doctrinal history, noting that the doctrine "at first limited to the case of an apparently voluntary conveyance with no express declaration, became so extended that a conveyance of the legal estate ceased to imply an intention that the feoffee should enjoy the beneficial interest." This expansion of the doctrine — beyond the narrow case of total silence on use — is significant and underappreciated in shorter dictionary treatments.
Black's gives a workable but compressed definition, citing Washburn on Real Property for the proposition that the resulting use arises where "legal seisin is transferred, and no use is expressly declared, nor any consideration nor evidence of intent to direct the use." The Washburn reference is useful for researchers wanting period-appropriate secondary authority.
Rapalje & Lawrence merely cross-references USE and RESULT without independent discussion — unhelpful for substantive research, though consistent with that dictionary's cross-referencing approach for derivative terms.
What historical dictionaries collectively underemphasize: the resulting use doctrine's interaction with partial failures of express trusts, and its relationship to purchase-money resulting uses (where one party pays for land conveyed to another). These applications, though recognized in equity, receive little systematic treatment in the dictionary sources and are better addressed in the encyclopedia entries noted above.
Jurisdictional Note
The Statute of Uses was an English statute and was received into American law unevenly. Several American states expressly abolished or significantly modified the Statute, affecting whether the resulting use doctrine operated as described in historical English sources. Researchers working with American land records must determine whether the relevant jurisdiction adopted, modified, or rejected the Statute of Uses before applying English resulting use principles.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Resulting Trusts — Purchase-Money and Failure-of-Express-Trust Resulting Trusts | The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia (estates_67)
Constructive and Resulting Trusts as Litigation Remedies | The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia (estates_107)