The condition for reconveyance or defeasance in a mortgage being a legal condition contained in a conveyance must, like all such conditions at law, be strictly observed, otherwise the benefit of it is lost forever so far as the common law is concerned. Thus a lessee held under a lease which contained a condition that the lease should be forfeited if the lessee assigned it without the previous consent of the lessor, such consent not to be unreasonably withheld. The lessee, forgetful of this condition, assigned the lease without requesting the consent of the lessor, and although it was admitted that had he requested it the lessor would have acted unreasonably in the circumstances in withholding his consent, nevertheless it was held that the lessee having neglected to observe the condition the lease was forfeited (f). In the same way the common law insisted that the condition as to repayment of the mortgage debt must be strictly observed. If the mortgagor failed to repay the debt on the very day fixed by the mortgage for payment the benefit of the condition was gone forever and the mortgaged estate became the mortgagee's absolutely (9).

As to the appropriate words of conveyance and their effect, see chapter 1, Introductory, Sec. 5.

(e) In Copestake v. Hoper, [1908] 2 Ch. 10, it was held that a legal mortgagee who had never entered was seised within the meaning of a custom which arose prior to the statute Quia Emptores. See further reference to this case in chapter 3, Legal Mortgage in Equity, Sec. 29.

(f) Barrow v. Isaacs & Son, [1891] 1 Q.B. 417.

(g) Strahan, Law of Mortgages, 2nd ed., pp. 18-19. See Co. Litt. 205a, quoted in Sec. 1. The same strict rule is applied to the case of a conveyance with an option to repurchase unless it appears that the transaction was intended to be a mortgage. In the latter event equity would relieve against the forfeiture as in any other case of mortgage. See chapter 3, Legal Mortgage in Equity, Sec. 27.

The condition, though it entitled the mortgagor to get back the land on repayment of the mortgage debt, was not during its continuance any estate in the land. It was merely a bare possibility. The benefit of it, however, descended like an estate, and so if the interest mortgaged was a fee, on the death of the mortgagor it devolved on his heir (ft).