Case ID: ga_149/html/0020-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Beck, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GEORGE v. DORTCH et al.
    
    Where one sold land and executed to the purchaser a deed, of conveyance, but inserted in the deed a stipulation that the note for the unpaid purchase-money, “by express agreement of the maker of this deed, is held as a second-mortgage note subject to a certain loan which shall be a prior lien on the property conveyed,” this reservation had the effect of creating such a lien on the property as was enforceable by the vendor against any subsequent transferee of the property, or mortgagee, except the one whose’ loan was expressly provided for in connection with the reservation.
    No. 1107.
    March 15, 1919.
    Equitable petition. Befoxe Judge Bell. Fulton supexiox couxt. May 29, 1918.
    
      Richard B. Russell and Holbrook & Corbett, fox plaintiff in error.
    
      
      Dorsey, Shelton & Dorsey, R. Low Reynolds, Philip N. Jobson, and Napier, Wright & Wood,, contra.
   Beck, P. J.

The court properly awarded the money to the claim of Dortch. The reservation in the deed which the latter executed to McCurry was sufficient to give him a valid subsisting lien against any subsequent lien created by McCurry, except in favor of one whose loan was expressly provided for in connection with the reservation. Any subsequent grantee of McCurry, or mortgagee taking a mortgage upon the property conveyed by Dortch, was bound to take notice of the lien created by the grantor in the deed to McCurry. Discussion of this proposition is- unnecessary. It has been ruled in a case substantially like the instant case. From the statement of facts in the case of Atlanta Land & Loan Co. v. Haile, 106 Ga. 498 (32 S. E. 606), it appears that Haile sold certain, land to the Atlanta Land & Loan Co., conveying the same by an instrument purporting to be a warranty deed, which was duly recorded, and in this instrument the grantor reserved a lien on the land for the balance of the purchase-money note. Thereafter the grantee conveyed the land to Mrs. R. C. Haile, who claimed that she paid a valuable' consideration therefor without. actual notice of the reservation of the lien. In the course of the decision in that case it was said: “Under the view we take of this case, we think the undisputed evidence demanded a verdict for the plaintiff, and that, the court did not err in directing the jury to so find. We think the court below was clearly right in concluding that the contract entered into by the parties when the property in dispute was sold by A. J. Haile to the company created a lien in favor of that grantor and his assigns upon the property for the payment of the purchase-money. This contract is evidenced by the deed, and the purchase-money notes specifically recite upon their face that such a lien is retained by the grantor. . .. Even without this recital in the deed under which this defendant claims, she could not have obtained any greater title from the company than that company itself had; and we think she is chargeable with knowledge of the' recitals in the deed by virtue of which her grantor held title. It is a well-settled principle of law, that recitals in deeds bind not only the parties thereto, but their privies in estate. Civil Code [1895], § 5150 [1910, § 5736]; Lamar v. Turner, 48 Ga. 329; Cruger v. Tucker, 69 Ga. 557, and authorities cited in the opinion of Speer, Justice, on page 562. The recital of the lien, therefore, in the deed from A. J. Haile to the company not only bound i.t, but Mrs. R. C. Haile as grantee of the company, she being its privy in estate.” That decision rules the controlling question in this case. This is not a ease where one sells land and conveys the same by an absolute deed'and attempts afterwards to enforce a vendor’s lien against a bona fide purchaser from the grantee in the absolute deed. Dortch was not relying, in this case, upon any vendor’s lien. He was asserting a lien reserved in the deed of conveyance. That reservation will prevail against any one who afterwards took a conveyance from the grantee named in the deed in which the reservation appears.

Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur.