terce

terce

in Scotland, an obsolete term for a one-third life rent in her husband's property given to a wife.

TERCE, law of Scotland. A life-rent competent by law to widows who have not accepted of special provisions in the third part of the heritable subjects in which the husband died infeft.
     2. The terce takes place only where the marriage has subsisted for a year and day, or where a child has been born alive of it. No terce is due out of lands in which the husband was not infeft, unless in case of a fraudulent omission. Cr. 423, Sec. 28; St. 2, 6, 16. The terce is not limited to lands, but extends to teinds, and to servitudes and other burdens affecting lands. Ersk. Pr. L. Scot. B. 2, t. 9, s. 26, 27; Burge on the Confl. of Laws, 429 to 435.