Deed, release

This release is one of two documents recording a property sale in Wandsworth, Surrey, in 1698. A lease would initially be agreed by the two parties and then a release would be signed to transfer the actual freehold. The lease would usually be signed the day before the release and would be a smaller document. The use of 'lease and release' deeds was the most common method of property conveyance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Lawyers were paid by the line when drawing up these documents so they tended to be long and repetitive!

This release records that Peter and Margaret Hudson of Sutton Place have sold a house and land to William Browne of London for the 'consideration' of four hundred and forty five pounds. Browne has signed at the bottom of the document which was then witnessed and sealed.