Case Name: William Schein, Appellant, v. Erasmus Realty Company, Inc., Respondent
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1920-11-23
Citations: 194 A.D. 38
Docket Number: 
Parties: William Schein, Appellant, v. Erasmus Realty Company, Inc., Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 194
Pages: 38–43

Head Matter:
William Schein, Appellant, v. Erasmus Realty Company, Inc., Respondent.
Second Department,
November 23, 1920.
Mortgages ■—• mortgage purporting to cover entire property but executed by owner of fractional part only — interest acquired by purchaser on foreclosure sale — deeds — validity of deed to unincorporated association —• making said association party to foreclosure of mortgage previously existing as barring any claim.
Upon the foreclosure of a mortgage given by the owners of a fractional part of the fee of the mortgaged premises, though purporting to cover the entire premises, the purchaser on the mortgage sale acquires the interest of the mortgagors only.
A deed of land to an unincorporated association, not representing a definite membership, conveys no legal title, as there is no grantee competent to hold the real property, and the title still remains in the grantor.
The conveyance by said grantor thereafter to the purchaser upon a mortgage foreclosure sale of a mortgage covering a fractional part of the premises operated to transfer to said purchaser the remaining interest in said land.
Any equitable interest created by the deed to the unincorporated association was barred by an action to foreclose a mortgage existing at the time the deed was given in which said association was made a party.
Jenks, P. J., and Kelly, J., dissent, with opinion.
Appeal by the plaintiff, William Schein, from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the defendant, entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Kings on the 18th day of April, 1919, upon the decision of the court rendered after a trial at the Kings County Special Term dismissing on the merits the complaint in a vendee’s suit to enforce his lien on property in the former town of New Lots, Bangs county.
Alleging that the title was defective, or not marketable, the plaintiff sought a lien for $1,229, the amount of his deposit under a contract to purchase and expenses in examination of the title. The facts concerning this title appear in the opinion at Special Term. (107 Misc. Rep. 27.)
The first question was the effect of a mortgage in 1897 to Wernmann for $3,300 by the Ermete children then owning twenty-two twenty-fourths interest in the premises, but purporting to convey the whole twenty-four twenty-fourths, which was followed by an executor’s deed under a testamentary power of sale on September 12, 1906, which conveyed the premises to one Kiendl.
This conveyance and those following it were considered to have supplied the omission of two twenty-fourths from the mortgage. But the main difference was over the deed of May 5, 1909, by Beihl to the Local Union No. 147 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (an unincorporated association), in which no individual grantee was named. The Wernmann mortgage was foreclosed in 1912, the president of the local union being named as a defendant. The learned court at Special Term concluded that the mortgage was properly foreclosed by making the president of the local union a defendant; also that through the executor’s deed to Kiendl, the two twenty-fourths not mortgaged finally reached the defendant, so that its title was marketable, when it tendered a conveyance under this contract.
Alexander Bloch [Samuel Bikoff with him on the brief], for the appellant.
Herman S. Bachrach, for the respondent.

Opinion:
Blackmar, J.:
The mortgage made to Herman Wernmann was a hen on twenty-two twenty-fourths of the property only. If there were any doubt of the right of the widow and seven children to make the mortgage, in view of the power in trust given to the executors to sell, that is set at rest by the fact that the conveyance from Kiendl, the grantee of the executors, to Beihl was subject to this mortgage, and, therefore, neither Beihl nor his grantees could dispute its validity. Upon the foreclosure, however, the purchaser upon the mortgage sale obtained title to twenty-two twenty-fourths of the real property only. No estoppel operated to increase the lien of the mortgage so as to cover the other two twenty-fourths. The extent of the purchaser's interest, as defined by section 1632 of the Code of Civil Procedure, is the interest of the mortgagor and mortgagee and those claiming under them who were foreclosed by the suit. We think that the deed from Beihl to Local Union No. 147, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, an unincorporated association, conveyed no legal title, because there was no grantee competent to hold the real property. (Owens v. Missionary Society of M. E. Church, 14 N. Y. 380; Mount v. Tuttle, 183 id. 358; King v. Townshend, 141 id. 358.) The unincorporated association was not capable of holding the title to real property, and such association did not represent a definite membership so that the conveyance might be considered a deed to the individual members of the association described by the name of the association. (Byam v. Bickford, 140 Mass. 31.) We think, therefore, that the legal title remained in Beihl notwithstanding his conveyance to the unincorporated association; and the quit-claim deed subsequently given by Beihl and wife to Gentry, the purchaser upon the foreclosure sale, conveyed to her the legal title of the two twenty-fourths in question.
Recognizing the accuracy of the general rule so cogently stated by the presiding justice, I find no reasonable doubt in the three legal propositions on which the affirmance of the judgment rests; First, that no legal title passed by a deed in which there is no grantee capable of holding real property; second, that a subsequent conveyance by the grantor in such deed can pass the legal title, and third, that any equitable interest created by the deed to the unincorporated association is barred by a foreclosure action in which such association is made a party pursuant to section 1919 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
Hence, the judgment should be affirmed, but without costs.
Putnam, J., concurs in a separate opinion; Mills, J., concurs; Jenks, P. J., reads for reversal, with whom Kelly, J., concurs.