Subject_1 ALIMENT. Subject_2 Of the act 1491, cap. 25. anent alimenting of Heirs. Subject_3 Import of the Act:
It is ordained, that where any lands happen to fall in ward to the King, or any baron of the realm, spiritual or temporal, or lands given in conjunct fee or liferent, as well as to burgh as to land, that the sheriff of the shire or bailies shall take surety of the person or persons, that gets or has such wards, that they shall not waste or destroy their biggings, orchards, woods, stanks, parks, meadows, or dovecots, but that they hold them in such kind as they are in the time that they receive the same; they taking their reasonable sustentation, or using, in needful things, without destruction or wasting thereof. “And an reasonable living to be given to the sustentation of the air, after the quantitie of the heritage, gif the said air has na blanche ferme, nor feu ferme land, to susteine him on, alsweil of the ward lands, that fallis to our Soveraine Lordis hands, as onie uther barronne, spiritual or temporal.”
Scots Acts, v. 1. p. 158.
Stirling v. Heriot
Date: 27 January 1669 Case No. No 11.
Aliment not due by the relict liferenting, the whole estate being inconsiderable, and the heir major, and in business.
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——Stirling, son to Commissary Stirling, pursues for a modification of an aliment, out of the liferent of Helen Heriot, his father's wife, as having the liferent of the whole estate.
The Lords sustained not the aliment, in respect the defender's liferent was very mean, and the pursuer was major, and kept a brewery; and she kept one of his children; and that he was not frugi aut bonæ samæ.
Fol. Dic. v. 1. p. 29. Stair, v. 1. p. 595.*** Gosford states the same case thus:
James Stirling pursuing Helen Heriot, his mother-in-law, for an aliment upon that ground, that by her liferent and infeftments, granted to creditors, the whole rent of his father's estate was exhausted.—It was alleged for the defender, That her liferent was only four chalders of victual, and 100 and odd pounds Scots; which was no more than a competent aliment to herself; as likewise that the pursuer was now thirty years of age, and had entertained himself as a soldier, or by brewery; and had left to him, by his uncle, the sum of L. 8000 Scots.—The Lords found the allegeance so qualified, relevant to elide the pursuit; notwithstanding it was answered, that the said sum left by his uncle, was due by his father, to whom, he being heir, all other creditors were preferred, whereby the whole estate was exhausted.
