Definition
A writ of entry ad is a common law real action that lay in favor of a reversioner — the person entitled to reclaim possession of land after a limited estate expired — when possession was wrongfully withheld following the determination of a lease for years. "Ad" here is an abbreviation derived from Latin procedural pleading forms used to describe writs of entry at specific degrees of alienation or tenure; in this context the full form often appears in practice as writ of entry ad terminum qui praeterit (after a term that has passed) or related variants. The action was not brought while the lease was running but only after it had properly ended and the tenant or a stranger continued to hold against the reversioner's right to re-enter.
The writ was part of the broader family of writs of entry — possessory real actions that, unlike the ancient writ of right, did not litigate bare title in the abstract but targeted the specific unlawful holding by tracing the disseisin or wrongful detention through a defined number of hands (the "degrees" of the writ of entry). Because it was possessory rather than proprietary, it was faster and less cumbersome than an action in the right, and it was the appropriate vehicle for a reversioner whose right to possession had become immediately exercisable.
Common Confusion
WRIT OF ENTRY AD vs. WRIT OF ENTRY AD TERMINUM QUI PRAETERIT vs. WRIT OF ENTRY CAUSA MATRIMONII PRAELOCUTI: The broader category "writ of entry" encompasses several named variants, each identifying a specific fact-pattern triggering the possessory claim. "Ad" in isolation typically signals the ad terminum qui praeterit form (for a reversioner after a term), but historical sources use abbreviated labels inconsistently. Researchers should not assume all writs of entry share identical procedural rules; the degree structure, parties, and defenses differed among variants.
WRIT OF ENTRY vs. EJECTMENT: By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the action of ejectment — using a fictitious lease and entry — largely displaced writs of entry in English practice. Many sources that discuss "recovering land" in post-1650 materials will be describing ejectment, not the writ of entry. Finding a writ of entry in late practice indicates either a conservative jurisdiction or a specialized fact pattern that ejectment could not reach.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term that belongs firmly to the pre-modern common law of real property. Researchers encounter it almost exclusively in three contexts: (1) treatises and abridgments from the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries explaining the architecture of real actions; (2) historical form books reproducing pleading templates; and (3) American colonial and early republic sources where English real actions were received but were already becoming vestigial.
The key navigational trap is chronological. The writ of entry as a live procedural tool was already fading in England before the American colonies were established and was formally abolished in England by the Real Property Limitation Act 1833 and the Common Law Procedure Act 1852. American states followed different timelines: some abolished real actions early by statute, others nominally retained them long after they had any practical use. When a nineteenth-century American case mentions a writ of entry, check whether the court is applying it as living procedure or discussing it historically as background to a title question.
The "ad" abbreviation is a specific corpus hazard. In digitized historical sources, "writ of entry ad" may appear as a fragment — the remainder of a Latin title cut off or lost in transcription. Cross-check against the full Latin phrase when the procedural posture of the case depends on which variant was used.
The reversioner standing requirement is also doctrinally significant: this was not available to a tenant in possession wrongfully ousted (who would use a different real action) or to a remainderman before the particular estate ended. If the research question involves who had standing to bring a possessory real action, the writ of entry ad is precisely on point for the reversioner scenario.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary provides the only entry among the shelf sources, and it is brief: the writ lay for the reversioner when possession was withheld by the lessee or a stranger after determination of a lease for years, citing Brown. The reference to "Brown" is to a legal dictionary or abridgment of that name in the English tradition — most likely Thomas Brown's law dictionary or a similar compilation — and is not independently verifiable without access to the specific edition Black's used. The entry is accurate as far as it goes but omits the degree structure of writs of entry generally, the Latin variants, and the historical obsolescence of the action. No other standard shelf source (Bouvier, Burrill, Tomlin, Cowell) is included in the provided source material, but researchers should consult Bouvier's Law Dictionary, which carries a more extended treatment of real actions and their degrees, and Blackstone's Commentaries Book III for the procedural framework within which this writ operated.
Jurisdictional Note
England abolished real actions including writs of entry by statute in the nineteenth century. American jurisdictions varied: Massachusetts retained a statutory form of real action longer than most states, while many others replaced real actions with unified civil actions or code pleading well before 1900. Research in any specific American jurisdiction requires checking when, if ever, that state's legislature abolished or replaced common law real actions.