The lease and release was a mode of conveyance of freehold estates formerly common in England and in New York.
The lease and release is said by Blackstone to have been invented by Serjeant Moore, soon after the enactment of the Statute of Uses.
A lease, in fact being a bargain and sale upon some pecuniary consideration for one year or some other nominal term, is made by the bargainor of a whole freehold (with no fetter on alienation) to a lessee who is in fact the bargainee (buyer), "by the force of the Statute made for transferring Uses into possession".
[3] As the lessee now owned both the current and future interests in the land, the lease and release amounted to a conveyance and was held to be equivalent to a feoffment.
[4] The original lease and release was devised by Sergeant Moore for the benefit of Lord Norris, "to avoid the unpleasant notoriety of a livery or attornment.