For other senses of Fine, see Fine (disambiguation).

Criminal Law

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A fine is money paid as a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim. A synonym, typically used in civil law actions, is mulct.

Common examples of fines is money paid for violations of traffic laws. Currently in English Common Law relatively small fines are used either in place of or alongside community service orders for low-level criminal offences. Larger fines are also given independently or alongside shorter prison sentences where the judge or magistrate considers a considerable amount of retribution is necessary but there is unlikely to be significant danger to the public. For instance, fraud is often punished by very large fines since fraudsters are typically debarred from the position or profession they abused to commit their crimes.

Fines can also be used as a form of tax. Money for bail may be applied toward a fine.

Early examples of fines include the Weregild or blood money payable under Anglo-Saxon common law for causing a death. The murderer would be expected to pay a sum of money or good dependent on the social status of the victim.

Fines in English land transactions

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A fine on alienation, in feudal law, was a sum of money paid to the lord by a tenant when he had occasion to make over his land to another. It is similar in nature to a relief, a payment made by an heir to the lord to receive his inheritance. The term fine is also a synonum for a premium, a sum paid to the landlord at the start of a lease or for the extension of the term of an exisitng lease (for example, to add an additioanal life to the term of a lease for lives).

A fine of lands (sometimes called a final concord) was a species of conveyance (abolished in England in 1833). It took the form of a fictitious suit compromised or terminated by the acknowledgment of the previous owner that such land was the right of the other party (a purchaser or other grantee). The court provided each party with a copy 'chirograph' of the fine and kept a third copy (known as a foot of fine). This was a necessary part of English convyancing, where a wife was consenting to bar her right to dower, or in certain circumstances where an entail was to be barred. In other circumstacnes, a Common Recovery was necessary for this purpose.

See also

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• Standard scale

Punishments | legal fictions | Criminology topics

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