Tuesday, August 28, 2007

ejectment - jurisdiction - sheriff's sale - deed

Wells Fargo Bank v. Long - Superior Court - August 22, 2007

http://www.aopc.org/OpPosting/Superior/out/a14007_07.pdf

A purchaser of property at sheriff's sale cannot bring an ejectment action until the title to the property passes by acknowledgment, delivery and recordation of the sheriff's deed. Before that time, the purchaser does not have a present right to immediate possession, a jurisdictional prerequisite to an ejectment action. The successful bidder at a sheriff's sale only gets "an inceptive, inchoate, or equitable estate."

The hiatus between the sheriff's sale and the delivery and recording of the deed is a "jurisdictional void" which cannot be traversed. There is an extensive (and repetitious) discussion of these principles, in the opinion.