assignation

assignation

in Scots law, the mode of transferring ownership of incorporeal property. The grantor is known as the cedent and the person to whom the property is assigned is the assignee or cessionary. No form is required, but one is provided in the Transmission of Moveable Property (Scotland) Act 1862. The general rule in Scotland is that anyone may assign to anyone else. The cedent impliedly warrants that the debt is subsisting and that any foundation deeds cannot be subject to reduction. To perfect the right it must be intimated to the debtor. This prevents the debtor paying the cedent instead of the cessionary. There are many special rules relating to intimation and many equivalents to intimation. The effect is to place the assignee in the shoes of the cedent and subject to all rights of the debtor: assignatus utitur jure auctoris, ‘the assignee may use the rights of his author’. See ASSIGNATION OF WRITS. For England, see ASSIGNMENT.

Collins Dictionary of Law © W.J. Stewart, 2006

ASSIGNATION, Scotch law. The ceding or yielding a thing to another of which intimation must be made.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.