Case ID: edw-ch_3/html/0313-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      The Vice-Chancellor :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hatch v. Morris and others.
    
      April 22, 1839.
    ¿ married woman, where husband did notJoln*
    On a purchase hy and conveyance to a married woman, she made a mortgage hack to secure a portion of the purchase money, without her husband being a party to it. An after.purchaser bought with notice ; -and interposed a demurrer on a bill to foreclose. Held, that the mortgage, though informal, was an equitable lien; and the demurrer was overruled, with costs.
    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.
    The defendant, Benjamin Russell, had become a purchaser of the mortgaged premises, subject to the mortgage; and he put in a demurrer, on the ground that the mortgage was invalid, as it was an act by a married woman in which her husband did not join.
    There was a charge in the bill that Russell had purchased the premises with a.knowledge of the mortgage.
    Mr. Elias H. Ely, in support of the demurrer.
    Mr. Kimball, for the complainant.
   The Vice-Chancellor :

Although 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.