32 S.E.2d 306 | Ga. | 1944
The purchaser of land, who holds under a bond for title with the purchase money fully paid, and who is in undisturbed possession of the land, cannot maintain an action in ejectment against the obligor in the bond for title.
"When the holder of a bond for title, or other written evidence of an executory contract of purchase, has complied with the conditions and paid the purchase-price in full, there is transmitted to him, by operation of law, the legal title, so far as it was held by his vendor." Powell on Actions for Land, 169, § 140. "When the purchase-money is fully paid (or the other condition of the bond is fulfilled, if the bond is not conditioned upon the payment of the purchase-money), the executory contract becomes executed, the legal title is transferred by operation of law from the vendor to the vendee, and the possession is no longer dual, but is in the vendee alone. He has a title sufficient in law (so far as his vendor and all others without superior right are concerned) to support an action of ejectment or to defend against it. If the vendor has retained the possession and the vendee has complied with his bond, the latter may sue in ejectment and recover the possession, and in this case the vendor is estopped from denying the vendee's title." *653
Id., 510, § 382. "It is well settled that where a vendee makes a contract for the purchase of land and pays all the purchase-money, and nothing remains to be done by him in order to comply with his part of the contract, he thereby acquires whatever title the vendor had, even in the absence of a deed. Such title is the equivalent of a deed from the vendor." Grace
v. Means,
The principle of law enunciated in the above-cited authorities makes clear the proposition that the holder of a bond for title with all purchase-money paid, and in possession of the property, is the holder of a perfect equity, upon which he may predicate an action in ejectment against anyone who attempts to or does oust him from possession. He may likewise defend his title and possession as against ejectment. Construing the petition in this case to be a suit in ejectment for the recovery of land — and it must be so construed in order for the courts of Dawson County to have any jurisdiction — what do we find the result to be? The plaintiff seeks to recover possession of land of which he is already in full and complete possession, and seeks to have decreed into him the title to land already vested in him. This cannot be a sound legal position. The plaintiff has vested in him legal title to the property and is in undisturbed possession. The only thing to which he is entitled that he *655 does not now have is the paper evidence of his title. He, of course, has his remedy to secure this, but not in an ejectment suit for the recovery of land. It follows that there was no error in the judgment sustaining the general demurrer and dismissing the petition.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.