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Deed poll

A deed poll (plural: deeds poll) is a legal document binding only to a single person or several persons acting jointly to express an active intention. It is, strictly speaking, not a contract because it binds only one party and expresses an intention instead of a promise.

The most common use is a name change through a deed of change of name (often simply referred to as a deed poll). A similar document to a deed poll is a Master Title Deed, 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, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand (until September 1995),^[1] Hong Kong and Singapore.^[2] In England and Wales a deed poll can also be used to change a child's name.^[3] This involves the child's parents executing the deed poll on the child's behalf.

Another common use is to partition 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, 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 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", 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).