encumbered

Burdened or weighed down, especially of property subject to mortgages, debts, charges, or other legal claims. In nineteenth-century Ireland, heavily encumbered estates often yielded insufficient income to meet their owners’ obligations. The Encumbered Estates Act 1849 established a court empowered to sell such estates and distribute the proceeds among creditors, facilitating changes in landownership following the Great Famine.