The entering the judgment on record, except in the cases specified ,y the Act, where the Lands in the hands of purchasers are to be sheeted, is not absolutely necessary. But to support a writ even ,rought for the purpose of reversing the judgment, the judgment must be entered on the records of the court.
Recent statutes have introduced great changes In the law of judg ments as they affect real property; but as the same rule, which existed before those enactments are still under certain circumstances capable )f application, it may be useful first to consider how judgments then stood.
A judgment at the time of entering up became a general lien upon property, real and personal, which the debtor then held or subse quently acquired, and gave the creditor a legal right, so long as the judgment remained on the records of the court and unsatisfied, to enter upon and reduce into possession any such property, by suing out the writ of ,furl fades, if the goods and chattels of the debtor were to be taken in execution, or the writ of eleuit as to his real estate, thereby changing that which was before a naked right into an absolute interest, limited nevertheless to the amount of the debt or damages for which judgment was originally entered up.
As to personal estate, it was enacted by the loth section of the Statute of Frauds, that the goods of the debtor should be bound by a judgment only from the time of taking out execution. And on the interpretation of this clause it was held that chattel interests in land were included under the term goods. This clause still remains in full effect, although in the case of a fraudulent assignment after entering up judgment and before execution, a court of equity would assist the judgment creditor to follow the goods into the hands of the assignee.
The rights of the judgment creditor existing only at law over the personal property of the debtor, which was afterwards extended to a moiety of the real estate, at Law the legal estate was only affected, and therefore, by the subsequent creation of trusts, the judgment creditor was frequently prevented from obtaining that remedy at law against the debtor to which ho otherwise would have been entitled. To remedy thie inconvenience, and enable the judgment creditor to obtain execu tion on the beneficial interest in any portion of the property of the debtor, it was enacted by the Statute of Frauds that execution should be delivered of all such lauds, tenements, rectories, tithes, and heredi.
temente, as any other person or persons should be seised or possessed of, in trust for Trim against whom execution was so sued, like as if the debtor bad been seised of such lands and of such estate as they be seised of in trust for him at the time of the execution sued. On the interpretation of this statute, it was held that au equitable interest in a term of years was not included within its limits, and only such trust estate as the debtor was interested in at the time the executions was sued out, and in which he bad the sole beneficial interest. In this' case the judgment creditor has no execution at law, but he might come into a court of equity and claim the mime satisfaction out of the equitable interest as he would have been entitled to at Law if it were legal. As however the sole right of coming into a court of equity was based on the failure of the law, it was necessary that the judgment creditor should forfeit his title to the unmet by suing out his writ of elegit before the court would listens to airy application to remove the legal impedlineut. Upon the same principle that it assisted the creditor who had no relief at law, the court of equity did not permit a judgment against a trustee, though at Law a lien upon the estate, to affect the beneficial interest of the cestui que trust.
As under the last mentioned clause of the Statute of Frauds a judgment did not affect the legal estate in the hands of the trustee, until the writ was absolutely deposited in the hands of the sheriff, a purchaser of the equitable ostato without notice might by getting in the legal estate protect himself against prior judgments; but if the purchaser bought with notice of„,the judgment, no acquisition of the legal estate would protect him. Equities of redemption were decided to be not such trust estates as to be included by the Statute of Frauds, the debtor not having the sole beneficial interest.