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15. The court will decide for
The owner brought an appropriate action against the fiancee to quiet title to Richacre.
The age of majority in the jurisdiction is 18 years old.
Two years passed. The nephew turned 21, then graduated from college. At the graduation party, the owner was chatting with the fiancee and for the first time learned the foregoing facts.
The recording act of the jurisdiction provides: «No conveyance or mortgage of real property shall be good against subsequent purchasers for value and without notice unless the same be recorded according to law.»
A month later, the nephew executed an instrument in the proper form of a warranty deed purporting to convey Richacre to his fiancee. He delivered the deed reciting that it was given in exchange for «$1 and other good and valuable consideration,» and explained that to make it valid the fiancee must pay him $1. The fiancee, impressed and grateful, did so. Together, they went to the recording office and recorded the deed. The fiancee assumed the nephew had owned Richacre, and knew nothing about the nephew's dealing with the owner. Neither the owner's deed to the nephew nor the nephew's deed to his fiancee mentioned anything about any conditions.
The owner in fee simple of Richacre, a large parcel of vacant land, executed a deed purporting to convey Richacre to her nephew. The owner told her nephew, who was then 19, about the deed and said that she would give it to him when he reached 21 and had received his undergraduate college degree. Shortly afterward the nephew searched the owner's desk, found and removed the deed, and recorded it.
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The vast majority of states in the United States employ a system of recording legal instruments that affect the title of real estate as the exclusive means for publicly documenting land titles and interests. There are three major types of recording acts classified as notice, race-notice, and race statutes.
The transfer process happens by way of deed. A property deed is a formal, legal document that transfers one person or entity's rights of ownership to another individual or entity. The deed is the official «proof of transfer» for real estate, which can include land on its own or land that has a house or other building on it.
Every deed should contain the following information:
An indication that it is a deedA description of the property involvedThe signature of the individual or entity that is transferring the propertyData regarding who is taking title to the propertyAs deeds do not require much information, the document itself is often very short. However, the document may also contain additional information, such as the conditions or assurances that go along with the transfer. Each deed must also be validly delivered to the individual taking ownership of the property. In most situations, it should also be filed with the appropriate authority. Every real property transfer will require the use of some type of deed. It is important to use the legal description of the property for the deed so that it can be recorded accurately.
Delivering a deed means taking some action intended to make the deed effective presently. What that action is doesn't really matter, but one obvious action is for the grantor to hand the deed to the grantee. Physically handing the deed to the grantee commonly creates a presumption of delivery, whereas retaining possession may create a presumption of non-delivery.
B is correct. Intent, rather than mere physical possession, is determinative with regard to the purported delivery of a deed. In this case, it is clear from the facts that the owner's intent was that title would not pass to the nephew until he reached age 21 and had earned a college degree. The nephew's physical possession of and recording of the deed contrary to the owner's intent does not negate that intent. Therefore, the deed was never delivered to the nephew.
A is incorrect. The important part of delivering a deed is the grantor's intent to make the deed effective by his action. The grantor may deliver the deed simply by gesturing to it or even by saying that it's now effective. Consideration is not required in relation to delivery of a deed.
C is incorrect. Courts reach different results when the grantor hands over a deed to the grantee and indicates that the deed is effective only upon the occurrence of some condition in the future. Some courts hold that the grantor intended the delivery to be effective, albeit conditional, and that the grantor can't impose such conditions on the grantee, so the grantor effectively delivered the deed. Such decisions simply disregard the conditions.
Other courts would hold that the grantor hadn't delivered the deed at all because he didn't intend the delivery to be presently effective. And some courts would enforce the condition and hold that the deed conveyed title if the condition was fulfilled.
However, if the condition is that the deed will be effective when the grantor dies, courts generally agree that the deed is void because the grantor's intent is to convey property at his death. Conveying property at death requires compliance with the formalities of the Statute of Wills. It is the failure of delivery, not the failure of a condition, that negates the nephew's conveyance.
D is incorrect. The fiancee's recording of a deed that was never delivered to the nephew is inadequate to secure an ownership interest in the property.