Diggs v. Siomporas

• Decision Date: 08 February 1968
• Docket Number: No. 69,69
• Citation: 237 A.2d 725,248 Md. 677
• Parties: Charles DIGGS v. Thomas J. SIOMPORAS and Burton Hazel.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 677

248 Md. 677

237 A.2d 725

Charles DIGGS v. Thomas J. SIOMPORAS and Burton Hazel.

No. 69.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 8, 1968.

George B. Woelfel, Sr., Annapolis, for appellant.

Douglas F. Lyons, Annapolis, for appellees.

Before HAMMOND, C. J., and HORNEY, MARBURY, BARNES, FINAN and SINGLEY, JJ.

HORNEY, Judge.

The somewhat unusual question presented by this appeal is whether the prospective purchasers of a lot of land under an option may waive a defect in the title and compel conveyance of the land subject to the flaw on the refusal of the record titleholder to execute a deed. The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County decreed specific performance and the purported seller appealed. The optionor-appellant is Charles Diggs and the optionees-appellees are Thomas J. Siomporas and Burton Hazel.

The optionees, who were interested in either of two lots in a development known as 'Woodland,' engaged a real estate agent to purchase one of them. One lot was owned by Frances Sparrow and the other was owned by Charles Diggs. The agent went to see both owners. Frances Sparrow was not interested in selling, but Charles Diggs was and asked $3000 for his lot. He also agreed to sign an option upon the making of a down payment to close the deal. When this information was relayed to the optionees, one of them (Thomas Siomporas) gave the agent a check for $100 payable to the optionor. The agent thereupon prepared the option in question which, in addition to the initial payment of $100, provided for payment of the balance of $2900 in sixty days. The option also contained a provision that 'if title is not good and merchantable and free of encumbrances, this contract shall become void and neither party shall have any claims against the other.' When the option and check were taken to the optionor, who could not read or write, the agent having first read and explained the transaction to him, the optionor executed the option by making an x-mark and Margaret Coates signing his name for him. The execution of the option was witnessed by the real estate agent.

The description of the optioned lot was taken from a deed dated May 22, 1930 from W. Meade Holladay, widower, to Charles Diggs, which purported to convey 2.5 acres of land known as Lot 9 on the plat of 'Woodland' recorded in the county land records. A subsequent title examination, however, disclosed a defect in the title in that Lot 9 had been conveyed to Douglass and Pearl Duvall by a deed dated July 20, 1929 and recorded before the deed to Charles Diggs. As a consequence title to Lot 9 had not passed to the optionor. But, as the record on the whole indicates, the parties had Lot 10 in mind as that which was meant to have been conveyed by W. Meade Holladay to Charles Diggs.

When the defect was discovered, the optionees decided to accept whatever interest the optionor could convey in Lot 10 and take a chance of perfecting the title thereto by securing a confirmatory deed from the heirs of W. Meade Holladay who had died. On the last day of the option period, the optionees, accompanied by the real estate agent, went to the optionor, declared they were ready to buy the lot and tendered $2900 in cash to the optionor. He refused the tender, saying that he was not going to do business with them. On the same day, the agent, on the insistence of the optionor, took back the $100 check 'in an attempt to relieve (himself) of any responsibility' and returned it to the drawer for safekeeping so that he, the agent, would not lose it. In his answer to the amended bill of complaint, the optionor averred that he had returned the check 'with the understanding that the transaction was closed and that he did not want the money without doing something for it' and denied that the optionees 'offered to pay him the option in full when he did not have title to the property and that it was not until after the sixty day option had expired and the money refunded that he told them he would not go through with any further dealings.' At the hearing, the optionor, besides testifying that he insisted that the agent take the check back "cause I haven't done nothing for it,' further stated that he gave the check back on the same day it was given to him; that the optionees were never ready and willing to perform; and that they never tendered $2900 to him. He also denied having executed the option.

Subsequently, the optionees got in touch with the heirs of the original grantor and, having convinced them of the mistake made by the predecessor in title, procured a deed to Lot 10 in the name of the optionor. The deed, dated some five months after the expiration of the option was sufficient to give the optionor good title to the lot. After the confirmatory deed had been obtained, the optionees attempted to induce the optionor to execute a deed conveying the lot to them but were not successful. Thereupon, this suit for specific performance was brought.

The chancellors (Childs and Melvin, JJ.), noting the variance between the answer of the optionor to the bill of complaint and his testimony at the hearing,...