WILLIAM SMALLWOOD, Esq; Governor.
purchase or caution money, or be liable to any charge or demand whatsoever,
except the common fees of office. |
1785.
CHAP.
LXVI. |
VIII. And be
it enacted, That the chancellor shall have full power and
authority, before the title of the state is granted or conveyed; to determine,
in a summary way, all disputes between purchasers of confiscated
property, and, for his information, to cause surveys to be made and
certificates
to be returned, and to order witnesses to be summoned by the register
of the land-office aforesaid, and to enforce obedience to such summon
by attachment, and in case of dispute between any purchaser of confiscated
property, before the state's title is conveyed as aforesaid, and any
other person, the chancellor shall have full power and authority to hear
and determine the same as aforesaid; and if the chancellor shall be of
opinion
that the purchaser under the state can derive a right or title from
the state to only part of the land purchased, and that the person or persons
disputing such title have a right to part of the said land, then the chancellor
shall issue a commission to five men of integrity and understanding,
residing as near the land as may be and not interested in the dispute or
connected with the parties, to inquire, upon their oaths, what damage
the purchaser from this state will sustain by the loss of such part of
his
purchase; and such commissioners shall, before they act, take an oath
before
some justice of the peace, well and truly, according to the best of their
skill and knowledge, to determine what damage the purchaser aforesaid
will sustain by loss of such part of his purchase, and the said commissioners
shall ascertain, and under their hands certify, the damage aforesaid to
the chancellor, who may, upon the certificate of any three of such commissioners,
determine and adjudge the damage sustained by such purchaser
by the loss of part of the purchase as aforesaid; and the chancellor shall,
upon such his determination, cause a certificate to be made by the register
in chancery of the damage determined by him to be sustained by such
purchaser, and upon such certificate being produced by the purchaser to
the treasurer of the western shore, he shall enter the sum certified
as aforesaid
to the credit of the bond given or to be given by the purchaser, or by
any person or persons on his behalf, for the property sold, or if bond
hath
not been given or may not be given before such determination, then the
damage aforesaid shall be deducted from the price agreed to be paid for
such land, and in case the purchaser hath paid the whole of the purchase
money and a los and damage may be determined and ascertained as aforesaid,
the treasurer shall pay to the party, upon a certificate of the register
in chancery,
to be given as aforesaid, money equal to such damage out of any appropriated
money in the treasury, if the payment of the purchaser was in money,
or a certificate for the same of the same kind as paid, if the payment
was
made in certificates; and the chancellor shall have full power and authority,
in all cases by him determined in pursuance of the authority given
by this act, in his discretion, to order costs to be paid, and to enforce
obedience
to such order by attachment and commitment in case of non-payment. |
Chancellor to
determine disputes,
&c. |
CHAP. LXVII.
A Supplement to the act, entitled, An act to authorise the issuing
grants for the lands therein mentioned. |
Passed Mar. 9. |
WHEREAS by the last clause in the act, entitled,
An act to
authorise the issuing grants for the lands therein mentioned, it
is enacted, that where surveys have been made to the westward
of Fort Cumberland, under warrants granted between the twenty-second
day of March and sixth of October seventeen hundred and seventy-four,
and the quantity expressed in the warrant has been exceeded, grants
may issue on such surveys, where the quantity expressed in the warrant
has |
Preamble. |
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