Court Opinion

ID: 9808774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:50:17.422788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:24.401978
License: Public Domain

Stacy, C. J.,
dissenting: Civil action to recover deficiency judgment on notes given by highest bidder for lots at auction sale. The following memorandum was executed at the time of sale:
“This is to certify, that I have this day bought from E. L. Strowd through Chapel Hill Insurance and Eealty Company and Durham Auction Company, lots Nos. 16 to 23, inc., Block No. 18, of the E. L. Strowd farm, on the eastern corporate limits of Chapel Hill, N. 0., as shown on plat of said property made by Sidney Credle, surveyor, April, 1925, and also by Blair and Drane, engineers, 1 November, 1921, for which . agree to pay the sum of $205, one-tenth in cash, and the balance to be paid in nine equal annual installments, with interest on deferred payments at 6 per cent per annum, payable semi-annually, notes given for deferred payments to be secured by first mortgage on the lands purchased.
Witness my hand and seal, this 22 April, 1925.
Witness: J. L. E.' J. E. Whitfield. (Seal.)”
*738The next day, in tbe office of the Chapel Hill Insurance and Realty Company, where, it had been announced, deeds would be delivered to the purchasers, J. R. Whitfield interposed an objection on the ground that the lots bid off by him were smaller in size than shown on map and were not as represented at sale; whereupon the manager of the Ch'apel Hill Insurance and Realty Company, who had the matter in charge, advised the said Whitfield to go ahead, make the cash payment, execute purchase-money notes and mortgage, or deed of trust, for balance, and if his contention turned out to be correct, or if he were not satisfied with the lots, they would be taken back. “I told him to go ahead and take the lots and that he and I would adjust the matter later. He says that I agreed to give him more land or money and I suppose I did agree to take the land back if he was not satisfied.” Was not this, then, a conditional delivery of said notes and deed of trust? Watson v. Spurrier, 190 N. C., 726, 130 S. E., 624; Overall Co. v. Hollister, 186 N. C., 208, 119 S. E., 1; Building Co. v. Sanders, 185 N. C., 328, 117 S. E., 3; White v. Fisheries Co., 183 N. C., 228, 111 S. E., 182; Thomas v. Carteret, 182 N. C., 374, 109 S. E., 384. If so, the plaintiff was fixed with notice of such delivery. The case should go back for a finding on this point.
The manager of the Chapel Hill Insurance and Realty Company, upon notice of dissatisfaction, returned the cash payment in accordance with the condition of sale, and took deed for the lots, but plaintiff insists upon a deficiency judgment after getting.his lots back by foreclosure. A right costly experience for the defendants.
ClabicsoN, J"., concurs in dissent.