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74 N.C. 335

Paschal v. . Harris

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided January 5, 1876

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1876-01-05

<p>■Where a mortgagor has an equity of redemption, subject to a power of sale, and the land mortgaged is actually sold after forfeiture, the right of the mortgagor is entirely extinguished.</p> <p>Hence, where A executed and delivered a mortgage to B to secure the repayment of a sum of money borrowed by him of B, the mortgage containing a power of sale upon forfeiture, and the land was sold upon the failure of A to repay the money at the time specified: It was held, that the administrator of A could not sustain a petition to sell the interest of A in the mortgaged premises, to create assets for the payment of debts due by his intestate upon judgments docketed prior to the execution of the mortgage, because the sale divested the intestate of all interest.</p> <p>Held further, That the liens of the judgment creditors, if enforced at all, must be enforced by some direct proceeding on their part for that purpose.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1876-01-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently April 2007

2 state decisions

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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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PjbabsoN, C. J.

¶1 The plaintiff’s intestate had an equity of ■redemption, but it was subject to a power of sale. An equity of redemption is a valuable interest which may be sold by the mortgagor and at sheriff’s sale ; and it is. such an interest as may be devised and will descend to heirs. Chap. 45, sec. 71, Battle’s Revisal, embraces an equity of redemption; but in our case the equity of redemption was subject to a power of sale, and when the power was executed, it took from the plaintiff all pretext in support of the petition and he had no foundation to stand on. The right of the intestate and of his heirs and of the administrator, was divested by the sale. Whether the mortgagee and the purchaser under the power of sale are subject to the lien of the docketed judgments, or whether they can get rid of the lien of the judgments, as purchasers for value without notice by reason of the laches of the judgment creditors in delaying to sue out executions for more than three years, are questions with which the plaintiff has no concern.

¶2 If the creditors -who have docketed judgments wish to make the question, it must be done by some proceeding on their part: for instance, let them issue executions and sell the land; then the purchaser under the execution and the purchaser under the power of sale in the mortgage can have a “ fair fight,” and the question be put on its merits. In this action, the plaintiff is interfering officiously in regard to a matter which does not concern him one way or the other.

¶3 We listened with pleasure to the argument of Mr. Gatlings *338 because it was able and well considered; because be discussed tlie point on which his Honor put his decision, and because the argument suggested a new doctrine so far as the decisions of our court extend, to wit: can a lien, valid at law, be defeated on the plea of “ a bona fid' purchase for full value without notice and in the second place, can the failure of a judgment creditor to issue execution for three years after judgment docketed excuse, a purchaser of negligence in not making inquiry of him, and in lending his money upon the bare word of the debtor in the execution, that the judgment has been satisfied ? Upon these questions we, at this time, say nothing. His Honor put the decision upon the wrong point; it should have been on the point that the plaintiff had nothing to operate on and his petition was f anotas ojfioio by a sale under the power in the mortgage.

¶4 Error. Reversed. The petition must be dismissed. This will be certified.

¶5 Per Curiam. Judgment reversed and petition dismissed.

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