Court Opinion

ID: 6950221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 01:30:41.325379+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:08:03.363564
License: Public Domain

Walker, J. Appellee claims the building in controversy under his purchase, at the constable’s sale, on the execution against Whitelock and Philips. On the contrary, appellant claims it as a part of the real estate, of which he was the owner. This then involves the inquiry whether it was real or personal property. It is a fundamental rule that real estate embraces lands, tenements and hereditaments. All improvements or additions of a permanent nature and adapted to its use and better enjoyment, placed upon land, are regarded as forming a part of the land. To this rule there are the exceptions of trade fixtures, which cannot have any application to this case. By express agreement between the parties, erections placed upon the land by the tenant during the term may be removed as personal property; or if the owner of the soil were by deed to sell a tenement erected upon the land, it would no doubt become dissevered, and converted from real to personal property. But as a general rule, when a building is erected on land, the presumption is that it is a part of the real estate and not personal property, and to take it out of the operation of the rule, a state of facts must be shown which rebuts the presumption. Even when a stranger constructs a building upon the land of another, without his consent, it becomes a part of the land, and he would become a trespasser by removing it. This record affords no evidence from which it can be inferred that the appellant, who was the owner of the soil upon which this building was erected, ever consented that it might be removed. He had contracted to sell the land to Mrs. Philips, but that agreement was afterwards rescinded, and when the contract was abandoned by the parties, appellant became undeniably the owner of the land and its improvements, both in law and equity, as no reservation seems to have been made of the house or other improvements. When Whitelock agreed with Philips for the purchase of the acre of land upon which the house was built, and which was embraced in Mrs. Philips’ purchase, there seems to have been no reservation or agreement for the removal of the house in any event. Whitelock gave an acre of the land, purchased of appellant, in exchange for the acre upon which the house was erected, and they each entered into possession of the portions thus received in exchange, and so continued until their several contracts were rescinded or abandoned, neither having paid for the land purchased of appellant. This building was a part of the improvement connected with Whitelock’s purchase, and it must have been made with the design of permanently remaining on the land, and not for any temporary purpose. If the intention of Whitelock was to render the improvement permanent when erected, there can be no question that it became a part of the freehold, and no subsequent change of intention changed its character to that of personal property, rendering it liable to levy and sale on an execution from a justice of the peace. The intention at the time to render it a part of the realty fixed its character beyond all dispute, and that character could not be changed by anything short of its severance by removal or by an executed agreement for that purpose. The mere change of the intention of the owner cannot have that effect. This principle was announced by the first of appellant’s instructions, in the series which the court refused to give, and it should have been given. . The court below having erred in refusing to give that instruction, the judgment below must be reversed, and the cause remanded. Judgment reversed.