Rucker v. Dooley

Citations

• 49 Ill. 377

Syllabus

<p>1. Sheriff's deed—uithin what time it must he executed. Although the statute requires a sheriff, on presentation of the certificate of purchase of land sold under execution, to make a deed to the holder thereof, if the land be not redeemed, yet such presentation must be made within a reasonable time, and that reasonable time must be considered, as the time in which the judgment is a lien, adding thereto the fifteen months allowed for redemption.</p> <p>2. If the application for a deed be made after the eight years and three months have elapsed, and within twenty years, the same must be made through the court from which the execution issued, by a rule upon the sheriff to show cause, and on notice to parties interested, as intermediate purchasers from the judgment debtor or otherwise.</p> <p>3. But the court would be inclined to hold, in analogy to the statute of limitations, and for the protection of purchasers for a valuable consideration, without notice of any lien, from the judgment debtor or those claiming under him, that after the lapse of twenty years a sheriff’s deed should not be executed to the holder of a certificate of purchase not under legal disabilities, on the anplication of the holder to the sheriff, or by any rule or order of court upon him for such purpose ; that such lapse of time should be considered an insuperable bar to its execution.</p> <p>4. In this case a sheriff’s deed was executed on the application to the sheriff by the holder of the certificate, twenty-nine years after the sale on execution. In the intervening time the judgment debtor sold and conveyed the land, the title passing by several subsequent conveyances to a remote purchaser, for a valuable consideration, and without notice of any lien, and who entered into possession before the sheriff’s deed was made. It was held, the sheriff was not warranted in making the deed, after such a lapse of time, and it was set aside as a cloud upon the title of the party in possession.</p> <p>6