What is an indenture?

2018-07-14
By whiggs
Posted in Contract Law, Deeds, Other

We’ve already examined the historical distinction between a deed poll and an deed inter-parties. But here is another!

Whereas a deed poll, made by one party only, had a shaved or “polled” edge, an indenture, which was a deed to which two or more persons are parties and which evidenced some act, bargain, contract, conveyance, covenant or agreement between them other than the mere consent to join in expressing the same active intention (i.e. the joint and several guarantors example above), was a deed with serrated or indented (hence the term “indenture”) edges so that each party had a similar deed with the two parts being supposed to fit together as a sort of a tally.

Oh, one more thing, so as not to confuse. In the United States they call what we call a ‘trust deed’, an indenture.