Coffey v. Hendricks

Citations

• 66 Tex. 676
• 2 S.W. 47
• 1886 Tex. LEXIS 596

Syllabus

<p>1. Presumption—Evidence—Official seal.—Where a certified copy of a deed is offered in evidence and the notary in his certificate declares that he had affixed his seal thereto, it is to be presumed that the seal was properly attached although its place is not indicated by the characters ordinarily used for that purpose. The same rule applies to the record itself when used instead of a certified copy thereof under agreement of counsel.</p> <p>2. Description.—When the field notes describing land are incorporated in a deed, and a mistake is manifest from the fact tha't the survey, as described, will not close, it is the duty of a court, when the deed is offered in evidence to give effect to it, if the land really intended to be conveyed can be ascertained from the deed itself, without a resort to extraneous evidence, and in that event that portion of the description manifestly false will be rejected, following Barnard v. Good, 44 Tex., 638, and other cases cited</p> <p>3. Certificate of ACKNOWLEDGMENT.^The effect of a proper acknowledgment of, or proof of a written instrument conveying or affecting title, is to admit the instrument to record. To be effective it must show on its face that it was taken by an officer authorized by law to perform the act If this be not done, the instrument cannot be legally recorded, nor can it be admitted in evidence without proof of its execution as at common law, following Holiday v Cromwell, 26 Tex , 189, and other cases cited</p> <p>4 Parol evidence—Latent ambiguity—A deed described the property conveyed as “ beginning at the southwest corner of an eighty-acre survey, on which the town of Sulphur Springs is located,’- Held, that if at the time when the deed was executed there were two towns in that vicinity known as Sulphur Springs, parol evidence would be admissible to explain the latent ambiguity in the deed and identify the particular land intended to be conveyed.</p> <p>5. Deed—Married woman —A deed executed by a married woman d