Definition
To revest is to vest again — to return a right, title, or possession to a party who previously held it but was divested of that interest. The term operates as the direct counterpart to "divest": where divest describes the stripping away of a vested right or estate, revest describes its restoration.
Two distinct but related applications appear in the sources:
1. Revesting of seisin or possession. A seisin is said to revest when it is re-acquired by the party out of whom it was previously divested. This is the original and most technically precise use: the physical or constructive possession of land returns to a former holder.
2. Revesting of right or title. The concept extends beyond possession to the mere legal right or title. A right or title can revest in a party even before or independently of possession returning to them. This extension covers equitable interests, future interests, and situations where legal title shifts back by operation of law or by the occurrence of a condition.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To dress a priest or religious figure in ritual garments; to reclothe; to return property to a former owner; to invest again with possession or office; to take effect again.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To clothe again; to robe. Also, to vest again with possession or office.
The common meaning of "revest" leans on the textile and ceremonial sense — reclothing, robing — which shares a Latin root with the legal term but carries no legal significance. The legal meaning is fully detached from garments and ceremony. Within legal texts, "revest" is a term of art describing the restoration of a property right or interest, not the donning of vestments. A researcher encountering "revest" in a legal instrument should not import the liturgical or sartorial sense.
Common Confusion
REVEST vs. REVERT: These terms are closely related but not identical. To revert is for property or an interest to return to the grantor or their heirs upon the natural expiration or failure of a granted estate — it describes a pre-existing future interest (the reversion) coming into possession. To revest is more general: it refers to any re-acquisition of a vested interest by a party who previously held it, whether or not the mechanism is a formal reversion. All reversions involve a revesting, but not all revestings are reversions. The conflation of these terms in older secondary sources is a research hazard.
REVEST vs. REINSTATE: In administrative and employment law contexts, "reinstate" performs similar work — restoring someone to a prior position or status. "Revest" remains the preferred term in property and estate law.
Why It Matters in Research
Revest is a term that appears with meaningful frequency in property law instruments, conveyancing documents, and equity pleadings, but it rarely receives sustained independent treatment in treatises. Researchers should watch for several issues:
First, the possession/title distinction matters for historical sources. Pre-twentieth-century conveyancing often treated seisin and title as separable, and whether a revesting of seisin also revested title (or vice versa) was a live question. Black's and Burrill both flag this distinction explicitly. Modern instruments tend to collapse the distinction, but historical documents should be read carefully.
Second, "revest" frequently appears in conditional grant and defeasible fee contexts. When a condition subsequent is triggered and an estate returns to the grantor, the estate is said to revest in the grantor. This connects revest directly to the language of powers of termination (rights of re-entry) and determinable fees. The mechanism of revesting differs between the two: in a fee simple determinable, the estate revests automatically upon occurrence of the limiting event; in a fee simple subject to condition subsequent, the grantor must act to exercise the right of re-entry before revesting occurs.
Third, the term appears in equity and trust law when a trustee's title or a beneficiary's equitable interest is restored — for example, after a fraudulent transfer is set aside, title revests in the original holder.
Fourth, in bankruptcy and insolvency research, "revest" appears in statutes and plans of reorganization describing the return of estate property to the debtor upon plan confirmation. This is a procedurally specific usage that differs from the classical property law application and should not be read interchangeably with it.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in firm agreement on the core definition. Black's, Rapalje & Lawrence, Bouvier's, and Burrill all trace the term to the same authority — Roper's Husband and Wife (1 Rop. Husb. & Wife, 353) — and share nearly identical language: revest means to acquire again what was divested, with seisin as the paradigmatic subject. The agreement across sources makes the definition stable and reliable.
All four substantive sources also note the extension of the term from possession to mere right or title, citing Brown (presumably Brownlow or a similar treatise reference). This suggests the expansion was well-established in classical common law usage, not a modern gloss.
Anderson's Dictionary of Law simply redirects to VEST, which is consistent with the term's derivative structure but unhelpful for nuance. Bouvier's entry on possibility of reverter, included in the source material, is technically adjacent but addresses a related concept rather than revest directly.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the bankruptcy and reorganization usage, equitable trust applications, and the question of how revesting interacts with intervening third-party interests (bona fide purchasers, encumbrances). These gaps are expected given the era of the sources and should not be read as implying the historical rule.
Jurisdictional Note
The core concept of revesting is consistent across common law jurisdictions. Procedural applications — particularly in bankruptcy (U.S. federal) and land title registration systems (which vary significantly between states and between U.S. and Commonwealth jurisdictions) — can affect how and when revesting operates in practice.