Definition
A clause of art in traditional lease drafting. "Yielding and paying" are the opening words of the reddendum clause in a lease — the provision that identifies and reserves the rent the lessee owes the lessor. The clause typically reads in the form: "yielding and paying therefore the annual sum of [X], payable on [date]."
The clause performs two functions simultaneously: it describes the rent obligation and, by doing so, creates a covenant on the part of the lessee to pay that rent. Whether the covenant created is express or implied has been a point of legal dispute. English and American authorities generally treated it as an implied covenant, though some jurisdictions have treated it as express. In Pennsylvania, the words were construed to create a covenant running with the land, binding successors who took the leasehold interest.
Common Confusion
"Yielding and paying" is not the same as the reddendum clause itself — it is the formulaic opening of that clause. The reddendum (or reddendo) was the broader structural component of the conveyance that reserved the rent to the grantor or lessor. "Yielding and paying" is the specific common-law phrase that activated that reservation and, in practice, doubled as the covenant. Researchers encountering either term in historical leases should understand they are looking at the same operative provision from two different angles: one structural (reddendum), one verbal (yielding and paying).
Why It Matters in Research
This term matters almost exclusively in the context of historical lease interpretation and landlord-tenant disputes arising under older instruments. Modern residential and commercial leases do not use this language — rent obligations are now stated directly in plain terms. Researchers will encounter "yielding and paying" primarily in:
— Pre-20th century lease disputes, particularly English common law cases and early American cases involving agricultural or commercial tenancies;
— Conveyancing treatises and form books from the 18th and 19th centuries;
— Title and chain-of-title analysis for properties held under long-term or perpetual leases drafted in traditional form.
The central research trap is the ambiguity in the character of the covenant created. Whether "yielding and paying" created an express or implied covenant was not uniformly resolved, and the answer affects whether successors in interest are bound. A researcher analyzing a historical lease dispute must identify the jurisdiction and era before assuming either answer applies. Pennsylvania's rule — covenant running with the land — is a well-documented outlier worth noting when working in that jurisdiction's records.
Because the words function as both a rent reservation and a covenant, courts sometimes treated them as doing more work than either a bare recital or a pure covenant would do alone. That dual function created interpretive friction when parties disputed whether the lessee's obligation survived assignment.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are largely consistent on the core meaning: "yielding and paying" opens the reddendum clause and reserves the rent. Black's (both editions), Burrill, and Rapalje & Lawrence agree on this without variation.
The more substantive entries — Bouvier and Burrill — go further and surface the live legal question the phrase generated. Bouvier notes the point directly: the words constitute a covenant to pay rent, but "whether it be an express covenant or not seems not to be settled," citing English and Pennsylvania authority in tension with each other. Burrill adds that the words "have been held to constitute an implied covenant, and not to bind th[e heir]" — the entry is truncated in the available source, but the reference to heirs suggests the further question of whether the obligation passed through a decedent's estate.
Burrill's note on linguistic origin — that "yielding" may derive from the Saxon geldan or gyldan, meaning to pay — is interesting but legally inconsequential. It does underscore that the phrase is redundant by design: both words mean essentially the same thing, a drafting convention that signaled unambiguous intent to create a rent obligation.
Anderson's entry included under this term is clearly misattributed in the source material — it concerns yeas and nays in legislative proceedings and has no relevance to this term.
Jurisdictional Note
English common law treated the covenant as implied rather than express, a distinction that affected available remedies and the binding of successors. Pennsylvania diverged by treating the obligation as a covenant running with the land. Researchers working with historical leases should not assume uniform treatment across jurisdictions and should check controlling authority for the relevant time and place.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia: Subcontracts — Flow-Down Provisions, Pay-if-Paid vs. Pay-when-Paid, and Scope of Work (background on how payment obligation language functions in property instruments)