In the case of lands contracted to be sold, the purchaser is relieved In equity against judgments entered up subsequently to the contract ; and also where land is conveyed to trustees for sale, whose receipts are to be sufficient discharge, the purchaser will not be bound by any subsequent judgments of which he has even express notice.
Until the paming of the acts 1 & 2 Viet. c. 110, 2 & 3 Viet. c. 11, and 3 & 4 Viet. c. 82, the law of judgments remained in the main unchanged. By them decrees and orders of Courts of Equity and rules of Courts of Common Law, and orders of the Lord Chancellor in matters of bankruptcy and lunacy, are given the effect of judgments, and the security of the creditor has been exteuded from a moiety to the whole of the debtor's lands, including copyholds, making leaseholds hound in the same manner as freeholds. And as all lands are included by the acts, over which the debtor may have a disposing power, judg ments against a tenant in tail are binding on his issue ; for the tenant might at any time have barred the entail. So also were equities of redemption and trust estates, in which the debtor had only a partial interest. After passing this act a question was raised whether stock was comprised in which the debtor had only a partial interest, bat this was set to rest by a clause of the second act, mentioned above, which distinctly declares that the/Merest of the judgment debtor, whether in possession, remainder, or reversion, in any stocks, funds, or shares, as also in the dividends and annual proceeds of such stocks, &c., is to be liable to the judgment, and that stock standing in the name of the aceountant-general is to be in the same position. Money and securities for money (except where deposited in the bands of a third person as a trustee) can also be taken in execution. But the greatest alteration which recent statutes have worked is changing the effect of judgment before execution is sued out, from a general lien to a specific charge upon the " lands, tenements, rectories, advowsons, tithes, rents, and hereditament," of which the judgment debtor may, at the time of entering up judgment, or at any time afterwards, be possessed, of any estate whatsoever, at law or in equity, or over which he may have any disposing power. All the judgments are made bind ing on the persons against whom they are entered up, and against all persons claiming through them, the judgment creditor being entitled to the same remedies in a court of equity as if the debtor had by writing agreed to charge the lands, &c. The creditor is not however to
proceed in equity to obtain the benefit of such a charge until the expiration of one year from the time of entering up such judgment ; and in ease of bankruptcy, the judgment, unless entered up one year, is to give no preference to the judgment creditor beyond creditors for simple contract. A special proviso excepts purchasers, mortgagors, or creditors previ ma to the time when the act came into operation; and with respect to purchasers for valuable consideration without notice, the rules of eq•;ity remain unaltered.
A judgment creditor, applying now for remedy to the Court of Chancery, will not be obliged to sue out the writ of clegit, for that which is agreed to be done is considered by a Court of Equity as actually performed, and the judgment creditor has therefore, by virtue of his judgment alone, an equitable estate. If however a judgment creditor, having obtained any charge, or being entitled to the benefit of any security, should, before the property so charged or secured is con verted into money and applied towards the payment of the judgment debt, cause the judgment debtor to be arrested, the benefit of such charge or security is deemed relinquished. The extent of such charge goes now to the interest at the rate of four per cent. on the judgment debt, as well as to the debt itself.
The dockets which existed since the 4 & 5 W. & M. are now finally closed, and no judgment, decree, or order, which might be registered under the 1 & 2 Viet. c. 110 (see 18 & 19 Viet. c. 15, s. 4), can affect purchasers, mortgagors, or creditors, unless and until a memorandum or minute of the judgment, &c., with the person's name against whom and the date when it was recovered, is left with the proper officer of the proper court, who is to enter the same in a book kept for the pur pose, in an alphabetical order by the name of the person whose estate is to be affected. In order to keep alive old docketed judgments, it was made necessary to register them according to this provision before a certain time fixed by the act, or they would be deemed satisfied.