Glover v. Dulany

Finan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellants, Herschel M. Glover, et ux., were the purchasers at a foreclosure sale held November 14, 1963, of a partially com ⁶³ pleted, precut-packaged dwelling, situated on 17,900 square feet of land, near Westminster, Carroll County, Maryland, at and for a price of $12,000, in fee simple. Prior to the foreclosure sale Edwin S. Stater, et ux., mortgagors, had filed a petition on October 23, 1963, to enjoin the sale on the ground that the mortgage was invalid on its face. The suit reached the Court of Appeals, where this Court affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of the petition and the mandate affirming, and remanding the cause for further proceedings was issued November 24, 1964.

(Stater v. Dulany, Assignee, 236 Md. 399 , 204 A. 2d 71 (1964).) In the interim, exceptions to the ratification of the sale were filed on December 19, 1963, by the mortgagors and the appellee filed his motion to dismiss the same on January 6,1964. Almost thirteen months later, on January 25, 1965, the appellants joined with the mortgagors in a pleading entitled “Motion to dismiss exceptions to ratification of sale and petition for allowance of claims and abatement of interest” wherein, among other things, they requested hearings on the claims of the mortgagors and the claims of apppellants for abatement of interest prior to the ratification of sale. A hearing on this motion and petition was held over ten months later on December 7, 1965 at which time the appellants, for the first time made a motion to withdraw their bid. It was also at this hearing on December 7, 1965 that the testimony of Norman Naill, a builder, was taken concerning the cost of completion of the dwelling.

Subsequently, on December 17, 1965, some twenty-five months after the sale, the appellants filed their motion to rescind the sale, withdraw their bid and requested the return of their deposit. The appellants during this entire period of time resided approximately a quarter of a mile from the subject property and are related to the defaulting mortgagors. The appellant Herschel M. Glover, a carpenter, had worked on the dwelling both prior to and after the foreclosure sale. The mortgagors have resided in the dwelling since July 1963 without paying taxes or making any payments on the mortgage.

Testimony of Norman E. Naill, taken at the December 7, 1965 hearing on the motion to dismiss exceptions to ratification and petition for allowance of claims and abatement of interest,. ⁶⁴ was to the effect that it would require $8,765.45 to complete the dwelling. The dwelling was a precut-packaged home, and it was contemplated that the original builder would construct the outside of the dwelling (shell) and that the Staters would at their own expense complete the inside. The appellant Herschel Glover testified that when he bid at the foreclosure sale on November 14, 1963, he estimated that it would require about $2000 additional to complete the dwelling and that at the time of the hearing on the motion to rescind the sale on April 27, 1966, he estimated that it would require $2300 to complete it. The appellants’ attorney contended that Mr. Glover meant that it would cost $2300 additional to overcome the deterioration plus $2000 to complete the home; however, the lower court interpreted Mr. Glover’s testimony as meaning $2300 to complete it, allowing for the deterioration that had occurred up to the date of the hearing on April 27,1966.

The appellants predicated their request for relief on the premises that equity should not compel the completion of a transaction where (1) ratification of a judicial sale has been delayed thirty months, and (2) the property has deteriorated substantially since the date of the sale. The appellants in an effort to uphold their contentions cite general language found in Annot., 63 A.L.R. 974 (1929); 30A Am. Jur. Judicial Sales § 126 (1958) and 50 C.J.S. Judicial Sales § 48a (1947) all of which may be summarized in the last quoted reference at p. 664: “Delay in completing sale.

It has been held that where,