Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

REI INTERVENTUS, n.phr. Sc. Law = an action taken by one party to a contract with the knowledge and permission of the other which commits both beyond the possibility of withdrawal (Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 842).Sc. 1773 Erskine Institute III. ii. § 3:
If, after a verbal agreement about the purchase of lands, part of the price should be paid by the purchaser, the interventus rei, the actual payment of money, creates a valid obligation, and gives a beginning to the contract of sale, which gives no room for resiling.Sc. 1883 J. Trayner Latin Maxims 534:
Rei interventus is the technical name given to any act done in consequence of or on the faith of a hitherto uncompleted bargain, the effect of which is to bar objection on the ground of the bargain being incomplete, and to take away the locus poenitentiae.Sc. 1929 W. M. Gloag Contract 173:
The actings relied on as rei interventus must have been known to and permitted by the other party.Sc. 1946 A. D. Gibb Legal Terms 74:
When A in full knowledge permits X, who has contracted with him, to do something, on the faith of the contract, which is lacking in form and so open to challenge, that is rei interventus and it bars A from challenging the contract.