Toupin v. Peabody

• Decision Date: 01 January 1895
• Citation: 39 N.E. 280,162 Mass. 473
• Parties: TOUPIN v. PEABODY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

162 Mass. 473

39 N.E. 280

TOUPIN v. PEABODY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

January 1, 1895

COUNSEL

Peters & Cole and William H. Moody, for plaintiff.

Jones & Pingree, for defendant.

OPINION

BARKER J.

Assuming that the instrument of August 20, 1888, is not a demise for two successive terms of five years each, we are nevertheless of the opinion that it is "a lease for more than seven years from the making thereof," within the meaning of Pub.St. c. 120, § 4, which enacts that "a conveyance of an estate in fee simple, fee tail, or for life, or a lease for more than seven years from the making thereof, shall not be valid as against any person other than the grantor or lessor, and his heirs and devisees, and persons having actual notice of it, unless it is recorded in the registry of deeds for the county or district in which the real estate to which it relates is situated."The statute is part of our system of registration of titles to land, and the general purpose for which it was established was to enable a purchaser of land to rely upon the information furnished him by the registry of deeds, if he has no actual notice of some different state of facts as to the title.SeeDole v. Thurlow,12 Metc.(Mass.) 157;Earle v Fiske,103 Mass. 491.The intention of the particular clause in question is that a bona fide purchaser without actual notice may rely with certainty upon the fact that no instrument which does not appear of record, and of which he does not have actual notice, can give a tenant for years the right to any longer term than for seven years from the making of the instrument.The statute is a remedial one, and, upon the principles of construction applicable to such statutes its general intention and purpose are to be given due effect and cases which are clearly within its general intention are to be governed by it: SeeMcMechan v. Griffing, 3 Pick. 149;Brown v. Pendergast, 7 Allen, 427;Woodbury v. Ireland,16 Gray, 105;Johnson v Gibbs,140 Mass. 186, 3 N.E. 17;Atcheson v. Everitt, Cowp. 382.Winchester's Case, 3 Coke, 4.The general intention of the section in which the clause is found is that no instrument operating to create an interest in land, greater than an estate for seven years, shall, unless duly recorded, be valid as against any person other than the one who makes it, or his heirs or devisees, unless such person has actual notice of the instrument.In expressing this intention, conveyances in fee simple, fee tail, and for life are first specified, and the enumeration closes with the words, "or a lease for more than seven years from the making thereof."In respect of estates for years, the term during which the land which a purchaser had bought could be kept from his possession by the holder of an unrecorded lease was the important matter to be fixed by the statute, as by his conveyance the purchaser acquired the right to rent and the other rights of the lessor.In fixing upon seven years from the making of the lease as the length of a term which might be valid, as against a bona fide purchaser without actual notice, the legislature intended that to be the utmost which a lessee for years, under an unrecorded instrument, could claim as against such a purchaser, whether the instrument demised directly a longer term, or provided for its indirect creation by an agreement for renewal at the lessee's option.A lease for five years, with the right to have a renewal for five years more, is as much within the mischief which the statute seeks to remedy as a lease for a term of ten years, and the reasons for requiring the latter to be recorded apply equally to the other, so far as the renewal term is concerned.We do not decide whether an instrument...