Wm. H. McCeney, Inc. v. Thibadeau

⁷⁹ Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a decree for specific performance of a contract dated December 8, 1954, to purchase a certain tract of land in Montgomery County, containing about seventeen acres, at a price of $42,500.00. The contract provided that “the title is to be good and marketable * * * or the deposit will be returned to the purchaser.” The vendor subsequently obtained a patent from the State of Maryland, which was recorded among the land records of Montgomery County on July 11, 1956, pursuant to a special warrant dated April 21, 1955, for “vacant” land, under Code (1951), Art. 54, sec. 24. The contract recited that the land sold was “Part of a tract of land called ‘Trundels Folly’ consisting of 75 acres more or less * * *. ” The appellant, purchaser, contends that the title is not good and marketable.

The only testimony, other than that of the vendor, who testified that he obtained a patent from the State in 1956, was that of Stedman Prescott, Jr., attorney at law, who testified: “I have examined the title to the realty in question, have gone back as far as 1835 and have been unable to find any chain of title to these premises. I have examined the title to the properties surrounding this property and this property appears to be lost property. I have not been able to find or identify any heirs who have any interest in the property and believe the title was good in the State of Maryland and that the patent to the land which was issued to Dr. Thibadeau would put a good and marketable title in him.” It is well settled that if “there is any reasonable chance that some third person might question the title after the consummation of the contract, the Court considers this a circumstance which renders the bargain a hard one for the purchaser, and will not compel him to execute it.” Garner v. Union Trust Co., 185 Md. 386, 389 . Cf.

Brown v. Shilling, 9 Md. 74; Gill v. Wells, 59 Md. 492, 495 ; and Berlin v. Caplan, 211 Md. 333, 343 . See also Note, 57 A. L. R. 1253. It is also settled that the legal effect of a patent is to transfer to the party in whose name it issues all the right which the State possessed in the land that it describes, and no more. Jay v. Van Bibber, 94 Md. 688 ; Gray