It is thought to have been intended to prevent secret conveyancing, although modern academics instead assert that it was so Henry VIII could keep an accurate record of who his freeholders were.

[2] It provided that after 31 July 1536, no estates of inheritance or freehold was to be transferred based on a bargain and sale unless the sealed and indented deed of the bargain and sale had been enrolled by the courts in Westminster or before the custos rotulorum, two Justices of the Peace and the clerk of the peace of the county, unless it was in those cities or boroughs where this was already required.

[7] The common impression, however, is that the Statute was intended to prevent secret conveyancing;[8] Oxland instead interprets it as being a way for Henry VIII to keep an accurate record of who his freeholders were at any one time.

[11] By leasing the land by bargain and sale for a nominal period (creating a use which is executed in favour of the bargainor immediately by the Statute of Uses), and then granting a "release" relinquishing the lessor's reversionary rights to the lessee, no transfer of freehold land took place and no enrolment was therefore necessary.

[12] The so-called "lease and release" is said to have been invented by Sir Francis Moore and came into general use in the early 17th century, confirmed in the case of Lutwich v Mitton in 1621.