Edgecombe Park Co. v. Finney

• Decision Date: 25 June 1913
• Citation: 88 A. 143,121 Md. 320
• Parties: EDGECOMBE PARK CO. v. FINNEY. WYLIE HEIGHTS CO. v. SAME.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

88 A. 143

121 Md. 320

EDGECOMBE PARK CO. v. FINNEY.

WYLIE HEIGHTS CO. v. SAME.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 25, 1913

Appeals from Circuit Court, Baltimore County, in Equity; Wm. H Harlan, Judge.

Mortgage foreclosure proceedings by William B. Finney against the Wylie Heights Company and the Edgecombe Park Company. From an order confirming a sale of the property to complainant, both companies appeal. Affirmed.

Argued before BOYD, C.J., and BRISCOE, BURKE, THOMAS, URNER STOCKBRIDGE and CONSTABLE, JJ.

William Colton, of Baltimore, for appellants. Morrill N. Packard, of Baltimore, and John Mays Little, of Towson, for appellee.

STOCKBRIDGE J.

The Wylie Heights Company was formed in the year 1907 for the purpose of developing a tract of about 125 acres on the northern edge of the city of Baltimore, lying partly in Baltimore city and partly in Baltimore county. The tract extended from the Pimlico Road on the west to Green Spring avenue on the east, and with a portion of it lying to the east of Green Spring avenue. It was conveyed to the company by Gerald Hill, and was at the time of the conveyance subject to a mortgage of $100,000, which had five years to run from the 29th of July, 1907. On July 29, 1907, the day when Mr Hill conveyed the property to the Wylie Heights Company, that corporation executed a mortgage on the property for the sum of $25,000 to William B. Finney, which amount is recited in the mortgage to have been that day loaned and advanced to the Wylie Heights Company. While it does not in terms appear from the record the inference is very strong that the purpose of this loan was to prosecute the development work on the property. The corporation having thus come into possession of the property, it had the same, or at least that portion of it lying between the Pimlico Road and Green Spring avenue, platted in lots, streets laid out and to some extent graded and macadamized, some drains and sewage pipes laid, and concrete walks put down to a considerable extent. By the spring of 1912, out of 328 lots platted, 79 had been sold, and 249 remained unsold. Defaults had been made in both mortgages, and in April of 1912 Dr. Finney instituted proceedings to foreclose his mortgage.

Under the terms of the mortgage from Gerald Hill to Henry F. Carstens, trustee, for $100,000, it was provided that the mortgagor and his assigns should have the right to sell the property in lots, and that the mortgagee would release lots having "an area of one acre and be in the form of a square, i.e., bounded by four sides of equal length at right angles to each other; any number of such lots may be included in a single release." For the release of each such lot fronting on the east side of the Pimlico Road, the mortgagee was to be paid the sum of $5,000, and for each lot lying to the east of those fronting on the Pimlico Road and the west side of Green Spring avenue the sum of $2,000. At the time when the foreclosure proceedings were instituted, payments had been made upon the Carstens mortgage to an extent which reduced the amount then due on it from $100,000 to $66,807.03, and $1,000 appears to have been paid on account of the principal of the $25,000 due on the mortgage to Dr. Finney, although there was at this time a considerable accumulation of interest due and unpaid on each of these mortgages, besides the taxes for three years. In the prosecution of the improvements there had been two other mortgages placed on the property in 1910, one to Dr. Finney for $5,728, and one to Dr. Charles G. Hill, for $25,000.

The property was sold under the foreclosure proceedings instituted by Dr. Finney on the 7th of May, 1912, subject to the outstanding mortgage to Carstens, upon which there was then due $66,807.03, and was bought in by the mortgagee, Finney, for his own protection for the sum of $36,000. It further appears from the testimony that the Wylie Heights Company in April, 1910, sold out to another corporation known as the Edgecombe Park Company. Upon the report of the sale exceptions to its ratification were filed by both the Wylie Heights Company and the Edgecombe Park Company, and it is from the order of the circuit court for Baltimore county overruling these exceptions, and ratifying the sale, that each of these corporations have appealed.

The exceptions to the sale are 12 in number; but it is unnecessary to consider each one in detail, since they all may be grouped under three heads: First, the advertisement of the sale; second, the manner of the sale; and, third, the adequacy or inadequacy of the price for which the property was sold.

With regard to the advertisement the objection made is twofold in character, insufficiency of the media through which the property was advertised, and insufficiency of description of the property. The evidence is that advertisement in full was made in the Democrat and Journal, a paper published in Towson, and the Daily Record, a law and real estate paper published in the city of Baltimore, and that such advertisements were made for the...