escheat

plural escheats

1. countableuncountablelawThe return, conversion, or vesting of property of a deceased person or closed business to the government (originally to a feudal lord) where there are no legal heirs or claimants. It is known as bona vacantia in the United Kingdom.
2. countableuncountablelawThe property so reverted.
3. countableobsoleteuncountablePlunder, booty.

   Approching, with bold words and bitter threat, / Bad that same boaster, as he mote, on high / To leaue to him that Lady for excheat, / Or bide him battell without further treat.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

4. countableuncountableThat which falls to one; a reversion or return.

   And by my ruines thinkes to make them great: / To make one great by others losse, is bad excheat

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 25

present singular third person escheats · participle present escheating · participle past escheated · past escheated

1. transitiveTo put (land, property) in escheat; to confiscate.

   Failure to perform duties opened the culprit to charges of ‘felony’ (felonia), providing grounds for the king to escheat the fief.

   2016, Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, Penguin, published 2017, page 329

   1 more example

   Arms are very rigidly controlled in Scotland by the Lord Lyon King of Arms. […] Under an Act of 1592, Lyon King of Arms can escheat to the Sovereign all goods unlawfully displaying arms.

   1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, page 477

2. intransitiveTo revert, convert, or vest ownership to the government or lord because its previous owner died without an heir or a business closed and no one claims the assets.