Tack

V. To annex some junior lien to a first lien, thereby acquiring priority over an intermediate one. Tacking: a doctrine of equity jurisprudence, allowing the owner of a first and third or later incumbrance to connect his right arising out of the junior to the senior, and thereby gain priority over the intermediate incumbrance. Bouvier lucidly defines tacking as the imion of securities given at different times, so as to prevent any intennediate purchaser's claiming title to redeem or otherwise discharge one lien, which is prior, without redeeming or discharging other liens also, which are subsequent, to his own title. The doctrine of tacking originated in the principle of equity jurisprudence, which allowed a purchaser of lands, in good faith and without any notice of a defect in his title at the time of the purchase, to buy any statute, mortgage, or incumbrance to sustain his title; and, if he could defend by those at law, his adversary would not be aided by equity Then, since mortgagees are considered, in equity, in the light of purchasers pro tanto, the same doctrine was extended to them; and a mortgagee who had advanced his money without notice of any prior incumbrance might, by obtaining an assignment of a title, judgment, or recognizance, protect himself from any incumbrance subsequent to such statute, judgment, or recognizance, though prior to his mortgage. In exercising this privilege, he was said to tack, i.e. unite, his mortgage to the old security; and by that means he might recover all moneys for which such security was given, together with the money due on his mortgage, before the intermediate mortgagees could recover any thing. The privilege seems to have been further extended to other incumbrancers, such as judgment creditors. The doctrine of tacking has not prevailed extensively in the United States, being inconsistent with the provisions and policy of the recording acts {q. v.), which require the rights of incumbrancers to be determined by the record of their incumbrances. It is said to have been abrogated in England in 1874, by the Stat. 37 & 38 Vict. ch. 78, § 7; but on this point Brown mentions the repeal of that section, in 1875, by the Stat. 38 & 39 Vict. ch. 87, § 129. Tacking mortgages happens when a third or subsequent mortgagee of land, by getting a conveyance to himself of the legal estate of the first mortgagee, is enabled to obtain, for his own security, priority over the second mortgagee. He is then said to tack his mortgage to the first mortgage. This is permitted if the person who claims to tack has originally advanced his money without notice of the incumbrance or incumbrances over which he claims priority, notwithstanding that he might have had notice of the same before getting in the legal estate. For the person so claiming to tack is held to have an equity equal to that of the incumbrancer over whom he claims priority; and, having got in the legal estate, he obtains priority on the principle that, where the equities are equal, the law shall prevail; and mere priority of time is not regarded where there is any other ground of difference. Brown.