Title

MARKETABLE, in chancery practice. A marketable title is one which a court of equity considers to be so clear that it will] enforce its acceptance by a purchaser. The ordinary acceptation of the term marketable title, would convey but a very imperfect notion of its legal and technical import. To common apprehension, unfettered by the technical and conventional distinction of lawyers, all titles bein either good or bad, the former woul be considered marketable, the latter non-marketable. But this is not the way they are regarded in courts of equity, the distinction taken there being, not between a title which is— absolutely good, or absolutely bad, but between a title, which the court considers to be so clear that it will enforce its acceptance by a purchaser, and one which the court will not go so far as to declare a bad title, but only that it is subject to so much doubt that a purchaser ought not to be compelled to accept it.

1 Jac. & Walk. R. 568.

In short, whatever may be the private opinion of the court, as to the goodness of the title, yet if there be a reasonable doubt either as to a matter of law or fact involved in it, a purchaser will such a title, though it may be perfectly secure and unimpeachable as a holding title, it is said, in the current language of the day, to be unmarketable.

Atkins on Titl. 2.

The doctrine of marketable titles is purely equitable and of modern origin.

Ib. 26.