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318 COOMBS v. JORDAN.
II having been finally settled in Maryland prior to the year
1732, that the immature legal titles awaiting perfection in the
Land Office, of which there is now, and always has been a great
multitude, were liable, as a species of chattels real, to be taken in
execution and sold by a fieri facias, it was to be expected, that in
construing and applying the statute of 1732, it would be made to
embrace at least all analogous cases of equitable interests, or those
inchoate titles which one individual had obtained a right, by a bill
for a specific performance, to call upon another to perfect and
make a legal title. And there is strong reason to believe that this
statute had been always so construed and applied.
Where in England a debtor had, by his will, charged his real
estate with the payment of his debts and died without heirs, so
that the property escheated, his creditors might have the benefit of
such charge by a bill in Chancery making the Attorney-General a
party, (u) In Maryland the statute of 1732 having subjected all
lands to the payment of debts, did that, in general, which, in
England, was only occasionally done by the debtor himself; and
consequently, here the Legislature by various acts, in affirmance of
the previous course of proceeding, declared, that such escheated
real estates might, by bill in Chancery, to which the Attorney-
General should be made a party, be sold and applied, without
preference, in satisfaction of the debts of the deceased owner, (w)
And recognizing the liability of equitable interests to the same
extent as legal estates, a similar mode of reaching such equitable
interests was given to creditors, where their debtor, who held any
such interests, had died without heirs. And it was provided, that
the purchaser of such equitable interests under the decree should
stand in the place of the person who had died seised or possessed
thereof, and might sustain a bill for a specific performance against
the holder of the legal estate. And it was further declared, that
where any sales of any such equitable titles have been made by
virtue of any writ of fieri facias or decree, the purchaser thereof
should have the same title thereto as if the purchase had been
made in virtue of the provisions of that act. (x)
These legislative enactments recognize the previously settled
law, and affirm the fact, that equitable interests had been before
that time taken in execution and sold under writs of fieri facias.
(u) Mitf, Plea. 172.—(w) October, 1780, ch. 61, s. 5; 1785, ch. 78.—(x) 1792,
ch. 44; 1794, ch. 60; 1795, ch. 83, s. 2 and 3.
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