Definition
To let in is a procedural term in equity practice meaning to admit a party — typically a defendant or claimant who has been excluded or defaulted — to participate in a proceeding as a matter of judicial discretion or favor, rather than as of right. The court "lets in" a party when it exercises its equitable power to relieve that party from the consequences of default, lapse, or procedural failure, allowing them to appear, answer, or assert their claim despite having forfeited the ordinary opportunity to do so.
The phrase is most commonly encountered in two contexts:
(1) Letting in a mortgagor or other claimant who has lost their right to redeem or assert a claim through failure to act within a prescribed time, where the court nonetheless admits them to do so upon terms.
(2) Letting in a defendant who failed to appear or answer in time, so that a default was entered, where the court reopens the proceeding and permits the party to defend.
In both contexts, the admission is discretionary. The court may impose conditions — such as payment of costs, or acceptance of a receiver's accounts — before allowing the party in.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "To let in" means to allow someone or something to enter; to grant access or admission.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To give entrance to; to admit.
The common and legal meanings share the same core image of granting admission, but the legal usage carries a specific procedural weight that plain English does not. In law, to let in is not a neutral act of opening a door — it is a judicial act of grace, exercised after a party has already lost or forfeited their ordinary right of participation. The court's power to let a party in is bounded by discretion, often conditioned on terms, and may be refused. The common phrase implies simple permission; the legal phrase implies relief from a prior disability.
Common Confusion
"To let in" is closely related to but distinct from the equity practice of "opening" a proceeding. Burrill's cross-reference to "to open" reflects that the two phrases describe adjacent but not identical actions: to open typically refers to the court's act of reopening or vacating a settled matter (such as a confirmed account or a final decree), while to let in describes admitting the party who then participates in that reopened proceeding. The two acts often occur together — the court opens the decree and lets in the party — but they are analytically separate. Researchers should check both terms when tracing equity procedure in historical sources.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is a marker of equity practice vocabulary and appears almost exclusively in older chancery materials and equity treatises. Researchers encountering "let in" in historical case reports, pleadings, or chancery records should understand that the phrase signals a discretionary judicial act, not a routine procedural step. The term carries implied content — the party was out, there was a failure of some kind, and the court is exercising mercy or convenience in readmitting them — that the text surrounding it may not always make explicit.
The phrase largely disappears from American legal writing as equity and law courts merged under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and equivalent state reforms. Modern practice addresses the same situations through motions to vacate default, motions to reopen judgment, or relief from judgment under rules such as Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b). A researcher tracing a procedural doctrine from its equity origins into modern practice must bridge this vocabulary gap: historical sources say "let in," modern sources say "relief from judgment" or "vacate default."
The phrase also appears in mortgage and redemption contexts. In historical equity, a mortgagor who failed to redeem within the period fixed by a foreclosure decree could, in some circumstances, apply to be "let in" to redeem — an exercise of the court's jurisdiction to prevent forfeiture. This usage is conceptually distinct from the procedural default context but uses the same phrase. Researchers working in property or mortgage history should be alert to which sense is operative.
Burrill's cross-reference to "To open" is a genuine navigational signal: the two entries function as a paired set in equity procedure research, and both should be consulted together.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole historical dictionary treatment identified in the Law Mind corpus. The entry is characteristically compressed: "In practice. To admit a party as a matter of favor." The phrase "as a matter of favor" is the operative weight-bearing element — it distinguishes this admission from one granted as a matter of right, and places the term squarely within the equity tradition of judicial grace and discretion. Burrill's cross-reference to "To open" confirms that the phrase belongs to a cluster of related equity practice terms that appear as a family in chancery sources.
No substantive treatment appears in other standard historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus. The absence is consistent with the phrase's character: it is procedural shorthand used by equity practitioners, not a defined term of art likely to receive extended doctrinal treatment in general legal dictionaries. Researchers should expect richer treatment in equity practice treatises than in dictionary literature.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia: Equity Practice; Default and Relief from Default; Mortgage and Redemption in Equity