Lindauer v. Cummings

Citations

• 57 Ill. 195

Syllabus

<p>1. Mortgage—whether a deed, absolute upon its face, is a mortgage—proof necessary to show. In a proceeding in chancery to redeem a certain lot of ground from a mortgage, alleged to have been executed on the premises, to secure the payment of a debt owing by the grantor to the grantee, the deed being in form absolute, to change its character to that of a mortgage, it was held, to require clear proof that it was really but a security for the payment of the debt.</p> <p>2. And evidence of loose declarations of the grantee in regard to his intentions was regarded as a dangerous species of evidence upon which to disturb the title to land, being extremely liable to be misunderstood or perverted, and the allowance of it for that purpose not in accord with the policy of the law requiring written evidence to attest the ownership of real property.</p> <p>3. The kind of parol evidence properly receivable, to show an absolute deed to be a mortgage, is that of facts and circumstances of such a nature as in a court of equity will control the operation of the deed, and not of loose declarations of parties touching their intentions and understanding.</p> <p>4. It has been held that evidence of such declarations alone, is insufficient proof to show an absolute deed to be a mortgage.</p>