Hitchcock v. Nixon

Citations

• 16 Wash. 281
• 47 P. 412
• 1896 Wash. LEXIS 47

Syllabus

<p>MORTGAGES —PRIORITIES —MERGER.</p> <p>A court o£ equity will not compel a merger where land is deeded to a prior mortgagee, if subsequent to the making of the mortgage the grantor has burdened the land with a second mortgage.</p> <p>Although the doctrine of non-merger may prevail in the interest of a mortgagee acquiring legal title to land, when such mortgage is paid, the question of non-merger cannot be kept alive for the benefit of a subsequent incumbrancer of the grantee.</p> <p>The payment of a mortgage is not such a personal right as can he pleaded only by the original parties to the mortgage, but a junior mortgagee has the same right to plead it.</p> <p>Where mortgaged premises are deeded to the mortgagee, burdened with a subsequent mortgage, which has been properly recorded, and the grantee himself executes a mortgage thereon to other parties, the latter must be held as taking a lien subject to that of the junior incumbrance on the land at the time of its conveyance from the original mortgagor to the original mortgagee, as the doctrine of non-merger in favor of the original mortgagee cannot be taken advantage of by the last mortgagee.</p> <p>Since a mortgage conveys no title, under the laws of this state, a mortgage of real estate is not a purchase within the meaning of the recording laws.</p>