Jones v. Linden Building Ass'n

Fowler, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Henry C. Gibson and his wife, executed on the ninth of July, 1881, an instrument of writing purporting to be a lease for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, to an alleged corporation called “ The Temple Building & Loan Association of Baltimore County,” reserving an annual rent of one hundred and eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents. It ⁷⁴ appears that the lessee never became a corporation in fact or in law, because of the failure to record the certificate of incorporation. Code, Art. 23, sections 44 and 45; Boyce vs. Trustees, etc., of the M. E. Church, 46 Md., 359 ; Isaac et al., Trustees vs. Emory et al., 64 Md., 333 .

And therefore no title passed to the supposed corporation by the lease of Gibson and wife of the 9th July, 1881. The reversion in fee is now vested in the appellant, and the leasehold interest is in the appellee corporation. The latter filed a bill in the Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City to compel the appellant to execute and deliver to it a confirmatory lease of the ground mentioned and described in said lease from Gibson and wife to the “ Temple Building and Loan Association.” To this bill the appellant demurred, and the principal ground of her demurrer is that if a confirmatory lease is now executed