official authorized to take acknowledgments, the execution of the deed for the purposes stated therein. It is necessary that the deed contain a certificate of acknowledgment to permit it to be recorded in most States. If it is to be recorded in a county or State other than where such official acts, a Certificate of the county clerk or register will also ordinarily be required to be affixed.

The officer who takes the acknowledgment cannot be interested in the conveyance, but relationship to the parties is no objection.

6. Delivery and acceptance. The last requisite of a deed is its delivery by the grantor and its acceptance by the grantee. If either party dies before this is done the deed is invalid. The deed has no effect until delivery and acceptance.

A deed is sometimes delivered to another than the grantee, to be delivered to the grantee at some future day, or upon the happening of some event, or the performance of some act. This is called delivery in "Escrow." No title actually passes until the second delivery, although, if that is the intention, it will date back to the first delivery.

7. Recording-In all the States laws have been passed requiring deeds of conveyance to be recorded in a certain office, usually the County Clerk's or Register's. Such recording is necessary to protect the grantee against subsequent conveyances of, or mortgages upon, the same property, from taking precedence. It is quite essential that the grantee as soon as possible have his deed recorded. mortgagees thereunder.

A further treatment of the subject of deeds and recording will be found in Part II.

MORTGAGES

8. Defined. In the most comprehensive sense of the term, a mortgage is a conveyance of property for the purpose of securing the payment of money, and becomes void on such payment.

It differs from a conveyance by deed, in that while the creditor, or mortgagee, is vested with the legal ownership of the property conveyed, in equity the mortgagor, or debtor, remains the actual owner and in possession, until he or she is debarred by his or her own default, or by a judicial decree.

No precise form of words is necessary to constitute a mortgage, yet there must be a present purpose of the mortgagor to pledge his land for the payment of a sum of money, or for the performance of some act.

9. Origin and History.-Mortgages can be traced in the history of the common law of England to a period antedating the Norman Conquest. They remained comparatively unknown, however, during the period of the feudal system, when restraints upon alienation of property were so universal, and such condition continued until this restraint was removed during the reign of Edward I., whereupon mortgages came into use as common-law conveyances, upon condition to become absolute upon nonperformance of the condition. In the United States mortgages have been used to convey property as security for debt from the earliest period, yet there is no American system, or doctrine common to the courts of the several States in respect to mortgages, or respecting the legal rights and remedies of the parties thereunder.

10.-Essentials of a Mortgage.-Parties capable of making and accepting a mortgage; a considera

tion; a transfer and pledge of property, either in existence or to be after acquired, and a description thereof; execution and delivery; registering and recording.

11. Parties to Mortgages. Whoever is capable of contracting for himself or on behalf of another, may execute a mortgage. The capacity to accept a mortgage, or be a mortgagee, is broader than that required to make a mortgage. Infants, married women, aliens, and corporations may become mortgagees in cases where they would not have the power to execute a mortgage.

Married women, at common law, have no power to mortgage their property, but this doctrine has been changed in nearly, if not all of the States, and unless restrained by the instrument under which she holds property she may mortgage it.

Infant's mortgages, like their deeds, are voidable only.

A mortgage executed by a lunatic will be held valid only where the proof is clear that it was made during a lucid interval.

Corporations have the right to execute mortgages unless restricted by statutes or their charter. Religious and charitable corporations, however, are generally obliged to apply to the court for authority to mortgage their property before they can execute a valid mortgage.

Habitual drunkenness, when causing a mental condition verging upon insanity, will incapacitate a person from making a valid mortgage.

12. Consideration.—A mortgage must be founded on a sufficient consideration. Generally mortgages are for the security of a debt. Usually a bond or

note is made contemporaneously therewith and represents the obligation or debt. Any benefit to the mortgagor, or to a third person, or prejudice to the mortgagee sustained at the request of the mortgagor, will suffice, however, to support a mortgage.

13. Mortgageable property.-Almost any interest in real or personal property which is susceptible of being transferred, may be mortgaged. The property must be so described or referred to in the mortgage as to be easily identified or located.

Improvements upon land distinct from the land itself may be mortgaged; and the mortgage may be upon property not actually in existence, but to attach to it and cover it as soon as it comes into existence, as in the case of crops to be grown on the land, or a building to be erected on the land mortgaged.

14. Execution and delivery. The execution and delivery of the mortgage, and its acceptance by the mortgagee, are essential to its validity.

15. Registration or recording.-As between the parties the mortgage will be good though unrecorded, but as against subsequent mortgagees or grantees of the same property, without notice of the mortgage, it will not be good. It is unsafe for a mortgagee to hold an unrecorded mortgage.

A person who takes title to property subsequent to the recording of a mortgage takes it subject thereto and subject to all moneys due or to grow due thereon, and subject to all the rights of the mortgagees thereunder.

Most of the States have enacted statutes respecting the execution, delivery, recording, etc., of mortgages, and for a further treatment of the subject see Part II, hereof.

CHAPTER XIV

LEASES

DEFINED.-A lease is a contract, express

1. or implied, between two or more persons, for

the of lands or tenements in consideration of a certain rent to be paid therefor. Goods, chattels and live stock may also be the subject of a lease.

2. Who capable of making a lease.-Every person capable of making a legal and binding contract. At X common law a married woman could not make a valid and binding lease, her husband being the person who could make a lease of her property. A lease by the husband terminated upon his death, however, unless the same was confirmed by the wife after such death, and acceptance by her of rent thereafter amounted to a confirmance. If a wife made a lease with the assent of the husband it was binding. In most States now the married woman can deal with her property as her own and can make a lease without the consent of her husband and without his joining with her therein.

A lease made by a minor is not void so long as he sees fit to perform, but is voidable at his election. He may disaffirm a lease of real property after he attains his majority, and of personal property at any time before or after reaching majority.