Case ID: ad_117/html/0749-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Miller, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Julia A. Ouvrier, Respondent, v. Elizabeth Mahon and Others, Defendants. Gittle Kurtz, Purchaser, Appellant.
    Second Department,
    March 1, 1907.
    Vendor and purchaser—when title marketable — presumption of payment of mortgage after twenty years.
    . After a mortgage debt has been due twenty years, there is a conclusive presumption of payment in the absence of proof of part payment within that period, and such presumption may be invoked where the marketability of the title is in question. ■ .
    Hence, a purchaser on partition sale will he compelled to take title although the lands are covered by five mortgages unsatisfied of record, if all were due more'than twenty years before date of sale and there is no proof of any payment of principal "or interest within that period.
    Appeal by Gittle Kurtz from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the Kings County Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Kings on the 4th day of December, 1906.
    
      F. J. Moissen [George Gru with him on ‘the brief], for the appellant. •
    
      J: Hampden Dougherty ^George F. Murray with him on the brief], for the respondent. ■
   Miller, J.:

This is an appeal from an order denying the motion of the petitioner to be relieved of her purchase on a partition sale. The petitioner objected to the title because of five mortgages appearing unsatisfied of record." Said mortgages were all due more than twenty years before the date of sale and there is no proof of any payment of principal or interest within said period. It appears undisputed that the.mortgagor and his successors were continuously in possession of the premises, and affidavits were submitted in opposition to the motion tending to show that the mortgages were not valid liens upon the property at the time of the sale.

The petitioner relies upon the general rule that a purchaser cannot be compelled to accept anything but a marketable title", but it is well settled that after the mortgage debt has been due twenty years 1 the presumption of payment becomes conclusive in the absence of proof of a payment within that period, and that such a presumption may. be invoiced in such a proceeding, as this is no longer open to discussion in this State. (Dunham v. Minard, 4 Paige, 441; Knapp v. Crane, 14 App. Div. 120; Paget v. Melcher, 42 id. 76 ; Forbes v. Reynard, 113 id. 306; Belmont v. O'Brien, 12 N. Y. 394; Katz v. Kaiser, 10 App. Div. 137; affd., 154 N. Y. 294; Martin v. Stoddard, 127 id. 61.)

The order should be affirmed.

Hirsohberg, P. J., Woodward, Gaynor and - Rich, JJ., concurred. ..

Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.