Lewis v. Merryman

Citations

• 271 Pa. 255
• 114 A. 655
• 1921 Pa. LEXIS 491

Syllabus

<p>Deeds — Delivery—Intention — Evidence — Presumption — Oral evidence for jury.</p> <p>1. Delivery of a deed is a matter of intention to pass title. It may be accomplished by words alone, by acts, or by words and acts. To be sufficient in law it must be found grantor has parted with title.</p> <p>2. When delivery is disputed it is generally a question for the jury, and particularly is this true where delivery is solely a matter of oral proof.</p> <p>3. A delivery is complete when a deed is acknowledged before a proper officer as being signed, sealed and delivered, without an act, expression or writing indicating an intention to qualify this formal act. ,</p> <p>4. Retention of the deed by the grantor will generally negative this idea, but a delivery to a third person for the grantee’s use; or, after execution and acknowledgment, the grantor’s parting with all control over the deed, is a good delivery.</p> <p>5. Signing, attestation, acknowledgment and recording are prima facie evidence of delivery, and the declarations of the grantor in some instances cannot overcome this presumption; but the presumption arising from recording is not irrebuttable.</p> <p>6. Where grantors execute and acknowledge a deed and deliver it to a third person without restriction or limitation save only an obligation to secure to the grantors the full enjoyment of the property during life, and the grantee agrees to such arrangement, and the person to whom the deed was delivered records it, the delivery is good, and the grantee is entitled to hold the land after the grantors’ death as against their devisees.</p> <p>7. In such case the strongest evidence of the delivery was the fact of recording, and the burden of overcoming the presumption resulting therefrom was on the devisees of the grantor.</p>