Definition
Tenances is an archaic plural form used historically as a synonym for appurtenances — that is, the accessory rights, privileges, easements, outbuildings, or other things that belong to and pass with a principal property interest. In older conveyancing practice, the term appeared in deeds and grants as a catch-all word to describe everything incident or attached to the primary estate being conveyed.
The term should not be confused with tenancy or tenancies (the possessory relationship between landlord and tenant), despite their similar appearance.
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Common Confusion
TENANCES vs. TENANCIES: These terms look nearly identical but are not related in legal function. Tenancies (plural of tenancy) describes the various forms of possessory interest a person holds in property — a term tenancy, periodic tenancy, tenancy at will, tenancy by the entirety, and so on. Tenances, by contrast, is an old word for appurtenances: the accessories and incidents attached to a property and conveyed along with it. A researcher encountering "tenances" in a historical deed is reading about what comes with the land, not about who holds it or under what arrangement.
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Why It Matters in Research
Tenances is almost exclusively a term of historical conveyancing, appearing in older English and early American deeds, grants, and property instruments. Researchers are most likely to encounter it when working through original conveyances, colonial-era land records, or early treatises on real property.
The primary research trap is misreading tenances as a variant spelling or abbreviation of tenancies. The two words describe entirely different legal concepts. Seeing "tenances" in a deed clause — typically in a string like "with all appurtenances and tenances thereunto belonging" — signals that the drafter was enumerating accessories and incidents of the land, not describing the nature of the possessory interest.
Because Bouvier equates tenances with "accessary" (his spelling of appurtenant or accessory things), researchers working with Bouvier's Dictionary should follow his cross-reference to the entry for ACCESSARY to understand the full scope of what historical drafters intended to capture with this word.
The term has no meaningful modern usage. Contemporary deeds accomplish the same function through the word appurtenances, which appears in standard granting clauses across American jurisdictions. Researchers encountering tenances should treat it as a historical artifact of conveyancing vocabulary and translate it functionally as "appurtenances" when analyzing the instrument.
No significant jurisdictional variation applies because the term is obsolete across all American jurisdictions.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary disposes of tenances in a single cross-reference, directing the reader to his entry for ACCESSARY, where the concept of things incidental and attached to a principal subject is developed. This brevity is itself informative: by Bouvier's era, the word was already receding from active legal use, treated as a near-synonym rather than a term warranting independent elaboration.
The historical dictionaries do not disagree on this term — there is simply very little coverage. What Bouvier provides confirms that tenances belonged to the vocabulary of property conveyancing, not to the law of tenancy or landlord-tenant relations. Researchers should not expect richer treatment in other period dictionaries; the term's marginal status in Bouvier reflects its marginal status in the broader legal lexicon even before the nineteenth century closed.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia, property_17: Landlord-Tenant — Overview and Types of Tenancies (for background on tenancies, to distinguish from tenances)
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia, property_10: Concurrent Ownership — Tenancy in Common
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia, property_12: Concurrent Ownership — Tenancy by the Entirety
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