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A deed poll (plural: deeds poll) is a legal
LAW

LAW may refer to:* Anti-tank warfare, e.g. the US Army M72 LAW or the British Army LAW 80*Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights ...
 document binding only to a single person or several persons acting jointly to express an active intention. It is, strictly speaking, not a contract
Contract

A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do, or refrain from doing, an act which is enforceable in a court of law. It is a binding legal agreement....
 because it binds only one party
Party (law)

A 'party' is a person or group of persons that compose a single entity which can be identified as one for the purposes of the law.Courts use various terms to identify the role of a particular party in civil litigation, usually identifying the party that brings a lawsuit as the plaintiff, or, in older American cases, the party of the first p...
 and expresses an intention instead of a promise.

The most common use is a name change
Name change

Name change is a basic legal act that is recognized in practically all legal systems to allow an individual the opportunity to adopt a name other than the name given at childbirth, marriage, or adoption....
 through a deed of change of name
Deed of Change of Name

A deed of change of name is a legal document in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, which enables a single person or a family to officially Name change and is bound to that contract....
 (often simply referred to as a deed poll). A similar document to a Deed Poll is a Master Title Deed
Master Title Deed

In English law, a secret profit is a profit made by an employee who uses his employer's premises and business facilities in order to engage in unauthorised trade on his own behalf....
, used mainly for recording a change of title, eg from Mrs to Dr etc.






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A deed poll (plural: deeds poll) is a legal
LAW

LAW may refer to:* Anti-tank warfare, e.g. the US Army M72 LAW or the British Army LAW 80*Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights ...
 document binding only to a single person or several persons acting jointly to express an active intention. It is, strictly speaking, not a contract
Contract

A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do, or refrain from doing, an act which is enforceable in a court of law. It is a binding legal agreement....
 because it binds only one party
Party (law)

A 'party' is a person or group of persons that compose a single entity which can be identified as one for the purposes of the law.Courts use various terms to identify the role of a particular party in civil litigation, usually identifying the party that brings a lawsuit as the plaintiff, or, in older American cases, the party of the first p...
 and expresses an intention instead of a promise.

The most common use is a name change
Name change

Name change is a basic legal act that is recognized in practically all legal systems to allow an individual the opportunity to adopt a name other than the name given at childbirth, marriage, or adoption....
 through a deed of change of name
Deed of Change of Name

A deed of change of name is a legal document in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, which enables a single person or a family to officially Name change and is bound to that contract....
 (often simply referred to as a deed poll). A similar document to a Deed Poll is a Master Title Deed
Master Title Deed

In English law, a secret profit is a profit made by an employee who uses his employer's premises and business facilities in order to engage in unauthorised trade on his own behalf....
, used mainly for recording a change of title, eg from Mrs to Dr etc. Deeds poll and Master Title Deeds are used for this purpose in countries including England and Wales
England and Wales

England and Wales is a legal unit within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom....
, the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland

Ireland is an Island country in north-western Europe. The modern Sovereignty state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned by the British on 3 May 1921....
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland

conventional_long_name = Northern Ireland|native_name= Tuaisceart ?ireannNorlin Airlann|motto =|image_map = Europe location N-IRL2.png...
, New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
 (until September 1995), Hong Kong
Hong Kong

Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located in Southern China in East Asia, bordering the province of Guangdong to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east, west and south....
 and Singapore
Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country microstate located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands....
.

Another common use is to partition
Partition (law)

A partition is a term used in the law of real property to describe an act, by a court order or otherwise, to divide up a concurrent estate into separate portions representing the proportionate interests of the tenants....
 land into different sections. For example, a piece of land may be partitioned (or carved out), by a deed poll, into Section A and the Remaining Portion thereof. This form of deed poll is commonly used in Hong Kong
Hong Kong

Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located in Southern China in East Asia, bordering the province of Guangdong to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east, west and south....
, where the development and redevelopment of land is rapid and flourishing.

Origin of the term

The term "deed", also known in this context as a "specialty", is common to signed written agreements not supported by consideration: the seal (even if not a literal wax seal but only a notional one referred to by the execution formula, "signed, sealed and delivered", or even merely "executed as a deed") is deemed to be the consideration necessary to support the contract between the parties to the deed. "Poll" is an archaic
Archaism

In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula ....
 legal term referring to documents with straight edges; these distinguished a deed binding only one person from one affecting more than a single person (an "indenture
Indenture

An Indenture is a legal contract between two parties, particularly for Indentured servant or a term of apprenticeship but also for certain real estate transactions....
", so named during the time when such agreements would be written out repeatedly on a single sheet, then irregularly torn or "indented" so that each party had a document with corresponding tears, to discourage forgery
Forgery

Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents , with the intent to deception. The similar crime of fraud is the crime of deceiving another, including through the use of objects obtained through forgery....
).

External links

  • at the Department of Constitutional Affairs website.