¶1Although the mortgage executed by the wife alone, without her husband, was informal and invalid as a legal instrument, yet, being intended to secure a portion of the purchase money upon a sale and conveyance to the wife, it may be upheld in equity as creating an equitable lien. Indeed, in equity there is a lien for unpaid purchase money as between vendor and vendee and all subsequent purchasers and mortgagees with notice. Here, the defendant Russell purchased with notice; and accepted a conveyance expressly subject to the mortgage which the wife had intended to create; thereby recognizing it as a mortgage or, at all events, as a lien or charge upon the premises for so much money. He cannot now be permitted to gainsay it. His demurrer to the bill must be overruled, with costs; but he may have twenty days to answer the bill.
3 Edw. Ch. 313
Hatch v. Morris
Decided April 22, 1839
New York Court of Chancery · decided 1839-04-22
Bill of foreclosure; on a mortgage given by Margaret S. Morris, who was a married woman at the time she executed it. Her husband did not join. The mortgage was made to secure a part of the consideration money, on a purchase by the said Margaret S. Morris and conveyance taken in her name.
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1839-04-22
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently December 1919
7 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
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