Jordan v Jones
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 21 December 1846 |
| Date | 21 December 1846 |
| Court | High Court of Chancery |
English Reports Citation: 41 E.R. 906
HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY
See Hope v. Carnegie, 1868, L. R. 7 Eq. 261.
jordan v. jones. Dec. 11, 21, 1846. [See Hope v. Carne.cjie., 1868, L. E. 7 Eq. 261.] The Court will not make a peremptory order upon a married woman, to execute a conveyance of an estate not settled to her separate use. This was a motion to discharge so much of an order (see XII. Gen. Ord. 26th August 1841) of the Vice-Chancellor Wigram, as ordered that the Defendant Mrs. 3 PH. 171. JORDAN V. JONES 907 Jones, who was a married woman, should, within four days after service of the order1, execute a conveyance pursuant to the decree and acknowledge it before a Master or commissioner. The Plaintiff was equitable mortgagee of an estate by virtue of a deposit of title-deeds made by Mrs. Jones, before her marriage, she being at the time mortgagee in iee of the estate. The suit was for a foreclosure of the mortgage or a sale. By the decree it was ordered that the estate should be sold, and that all proper parties should join in the conveyance as the Master should direct. The estate was accordingly sold, and the purchaser having paid his purchase-money into Court was let into possession : .but Mrs. Jones and her husband having refused to execute the deed of conveyance, the [171] above-mentioned order was obtained for the purpose of enforcing the decree against them by process of contempt. Mr. Cooper and Mr. Haunders, for the motion, said that the only way in which a married woman could convey an estate not settled to her separate use was, before the passing of the 3 Si 4 W. 4, c. 74, by fine : and, since that Act, by the form thereby substituted (ss. 79, 80). And that in both cases it was of the essence of the Act that it should be voluntary; that, accordingly, there was no case either before the statute, or since, in which a married woman had been committed for refusing to execute a deed. That, on the contrary, the Court was so jealous of any attempt to control her will, that it often refused to enforce against a husband an express covenant that his wife should join in a conveyance. (Sugd. V. & P. 10th ed. c. 4, s. 3, pi. 19, and the cases there cited.) Mr. Giffard, contra, observed that all the authorities referred to were cases in which the husband had contracted to sell his wife's estate; and that the rule which, in the case of a married woman, required a voluntary acknowledgment of a deed, as formerly of a fine, had reference only to...
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