Harkreader v. Clayton

Citations

• 56 Miss. 383

Syllabus

<p>1. Deed. Delivery. Acceptance.</p> <p>A deed becomes absolute and effectual, by delivery by the grantor and acceptance by the grantee, and the acceptance may be express, or implied from circumstances ; but until delivery the instrument is not the grantor’s deed.</p> <p>2. Same. Escroto. Condition. Second delivery.</p> <p>A written instrument signed, sealed, and acknowledged by the grantor, and by him delivered to a third person, to be by such person delivered to the grantee upon the happening of some future event, is an escrow, which takes effect upon the second delivery; and if the grantee obtains possession of it before the event happens, the grantor may avoid it on the plea of non est factum,.</p> <p>3. Escrow. Delivery. Relation bade.</p> <p>While the estate does not pass until the second delivery, in the case of an escrow, yet in some instances, to prevent a failure of justice, — as, where the grantor dies before the second delivery, and the like, — the deed will be held to relate back to the first delivery.</p> <p>4. Same. Payment to agent. Void delivery.</p> <p>Where the obligor in a bond for title sends the deed, signed, sealed, and acknowledged, to a third person, to be delivered to the obligee in said bond when the latter shall have paid the purchase-money, and such obligee, without having paid such purchase-money, surreptitiously obtains possession of the deed, it is void; and if such obligor, and also such third person, are both dead when said deed is obtained by the obligee, who, purchasing the land conveyed under a void chancery decree, pays the purchase-money to an attorney-at-law employed by such third person, while alive, to enforce specific performance of the bond for title, who pays said money to the administratrix of such third person, so-that it never comes to the heirs or the representatives of the obligor in the bond for title, such payment is unauthorized, the condition never performed, and the escrow in the hands of the obligee in the bon