Greenwood Loan & Guarantee Ass'n v. Childs
Greenwood Loan & Guarantee Ass'n v. Childs
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
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The reasons given by the Circuit Court for the order appointing a receiver to collect rents, manage, insure and preserve the property pending litigation, are as follows: “At the hearing I was in doubt about who held the legal title, the plaintiff or the defendant; but upon consideration thereof, the matter is plain to me. The mortgage to plaintiff and the foreclosure thereof, would operate to convey the fee, had Williams not made a deed to defendant. The mortgage put the fee where a Court could lay hands on it to subject it to the payment of the debt. It was beyond the reach of the mortgagor to alienate by deed. The mortgagor only sold that which she had a right to, to wit: the right to pay the debt and cancel the mortgage. If the conveyee or the mortgagor still has that right, she can assert it in this action under the allegations of the complaint; it is only an equity. Trimmier v. Vise, 17 S. C., 501; Agnew v. R. R., 24 S. C., 24. If the plaintiff has the plain legal title, and the defendant is insolvent, then the plaintiff is entitled to an order appointing a receiver of the property to husband the rents. Beach on Receivers, sec. 73, et seq.”
We think the order appointing a receiver was erroneous. Since the act of 1791, what is inaccurately called the “equity of redemption” is the legal estate in the realty subject to the *254 lien of the mortgage debt. When, therefore, the mortgagor, Hattie Williams, conveyed the mortgaged property to defendant, this “equity of redemption,” or legal estate subject to the mortgage lien, passed to defendant on March 4, 1901, before the commencement of the action to foreclose the mortgage. The holder of the “equity of redemption,” so called, is a necessary party to the action to foreclose the mortgage, and unless made a party is in no wise concluded by the proceedings. Rodgers v. Jones, 1 McC. Eq., 321; S. C. Mfg. Co. v. Price, 4 S. C., 339; 9 Ency. Pl. & Pr., 303 — citing many cases. Hence defendant remains owner of the fee in the property, and as such is, of course, entitled to the rents and profits, unless such rents and profits are pledged in the mortgage to the payment of the mortgage debt. It does not appear that such rents and profits are pledged in the mortgage. In the absence of such pledge of rents and profits in the mortgage, the mortgagee, after condition broken and upon insolvency of the mortgagor and insufficiency of the mortgaged premises, is not entitled as of legal right to have a receiver appointed pendente lite to collect the rents and profits, nor is the mortgagor in such a case so entitled in equity after a conveyance of mortgaged premises. Seignious v. Pate, 32 S. C., 134, 10 S. E., 880. The plaintiff not having the legal title, and his mortgage not containing a pledge of the rents and profits, he fails to' establish an apparent right to the property, which is the subject of the action, or to the rents and profits thereof, as required in sec. 265, subdivision 1, of the Civil Code of Procedure, regulating appointment of receivers before judgment. Furthermore, there was no apparent necessity to appoint a receiver, because it does not appear that the mortgagor is insolvent nor that the mortgaged premises are insufficient. In so far as it may be advisable to insure the buildings on the premises, a receiver is' not needed, since the plaintiff as mortgagee has an insurable interest which it may protect by insurance. The foregoing result seems inevitable, unless the fact that defendant’s deed was recorded some days after the *255 commencement of the action to foreclose the mortgage affects the question. We do not regard that fact as at all changing the situation. It was the duty of plaintiff in the foreclosure proceedings to make sure that the owner of the “equity of redemption” was a party to the foreclosure suit, or brought within the law governing the effect of the filing of lis pendens. Sec. 153 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides : “In an action affecting the title to real property, the plaintiff, at the time of filing the complaint, or at any time afterwards * * * may file with the clerk of each county in which the property is situated, a notice of the pendency of the action, containing the names of the parties, the object of the action, and the description of the property in that county affected thereby; and if the action be for the foreclosure of a mortgage, such notice must be filed twenty days before judgment, and must contain the date of the mortgage, the parties thereto, and the time and place of recording the same. From the time”of filing only, shall the pendency of the action be constructive notice to a purchaser or encumbrancer of the property affected thereby; and every person whose conveyance or encumbrance is subsequently executed or subsequently recorded shall be deemed as subsequent purchaser or encumbrancer, and shall be bound by all proceedings taken after the filing of such notice to the same extent as if he had been made a party to the action. For the purposes of this section, an action shall be deemed to be pending from the time of filing such notice” * * * It is very clear that this statute does not place defendant in the position of a “subsequent purchaser,” inasmuch as defendant’s deed was transcribed upon the record book before the filing of the lis pendens.
The order of the Circuit Court appointing a receiver is reversed.
Reference
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- 1. Appeae — Notice.—Handing attorney an original order with date of filing marked thereon, is not such notice of the filing as is required by Code to give currency to limitation of time to appeal. 2. Receiver — Mortgage—Rents.—Mortgagor remains owner of fee in mortgaged lands, and when, after executing a mortgage, he conveys to another who goes in possession under such deed, which is recorded after commencement of foreclosure but before filing of lis pendens, the purchaser at such foreclosure sale is not entitled, in action to recover possession, to appointment of receiver to collect rents and preserve the property unless the mortgage provides that rents may be so applied, especially where it does not appear that mortgagor is insolvent or that mortgaged premises are insufficient. 3. Deeds — Recording.—A deed spread on record of deeds is properly recorded, although not indexed. Armstrong v. Austin, 45 S. C., 69, affirmed.