Mittlesteadt v. Johnson

Citations

• 75 Wash. 550
• 135 P. 214
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 2245

Syllabus

<p>Mortgages — Absolute Deed as Mortgage. Under the rule that the presumption is that the transaction is what it purports to be, an absolute deed in consideration of advances, with a contemporaneous agreement by the grantee to reconvej'- on repayment of the advances within a specified time, if the grantor recovers his health, is not shown to be intended as a mortgage but a conditional sale, which became absolute on the grantor’s death, where it appears that the grantor, an old bachelor, without money or means of obtaining a living, had tuberculosis, and had been advised that he had but a short time to live, and wished to enter a hospital, that he was indebted to the grantee, his nearest neighbor, for past advances for living expenses and favors received, and desired him to have all his property, and that he accordingly executed the deed in consideration of an agreement by the grantee to make further advances to obtain hospital fees and the necessaries and comforts of life until his death and to pay his funeral expenses.</p>