McCleery v. Stoup

Citations

• 32 Pa. Super. 42
• 1906 Pa. Super. LEXIS 282

Syllabus

<p>Vendor and vendee — Judgment—Lien—Legal title.</p> <p>A judgment entered against a vendor who has sold land by articles of agreement, but who still retains the legal title, becomes a lien against any estate remaining in the vendor evidenced by that title.</p> <p>If the vendor either in the agreement of sale itself, or at any time thereafter but prior to the entry of the judgment, in good faith, and for a lawful consideration to him moving, assigns and transfers to another, or to one in trust for a number of others, all of the unpaid purchase money, then the legal title remaining in the vendor is stripped of every incident and element of value to him, and there will be nothing upon which the lien of a judgment against him can fasten. He will then hold but the naked legal title in trust for his vendee, if the terms of sale are complied with, or for those who had succeeded to his own rights in the purchase money if it becomes necessary for them to use it to enforce those rights.</p> <p>Where a vendor in good faith assigns the purchase money of the land to the vendee to be by him applied in payment or settlement of the vendor’s debts, the transaction amounts to an assignment of the purchase money, and no title to it will remain in the vendor, to which the lien of a judgment against him can fasten.</p> <p>The assignment of a chose in action or of a fund need not be by any particular form of words, or particular form of instrument. Any binding appropriation of it to a particular use by any writing whatever is an assignment of a transfer of the ownership.</p>