The redemption act is a remedial statute, and was intended to benefit the debtor by preventing a sacrifice of his property, and also junior judgment creditors, by permitting them to redeem. (1 Cow. 501; 2 Hill, 58.)
A sale on execution extinguishes the lien on the land sold. (8 Johns. Rep. 333; 2 Wend. 297; 7 Cow. 367 and 658.)
After a sale for less than the amount due on the judgment, creditors have a right to redeem, and the Court refused to set aside a sale on motion of the judgment creditor. (7 Cow. 367. See 8 Johns. 333; 1 Cow. 501.)
A sale extinguishes the lien of the judgment for the balance due; but if the debtor redeem, the sale becomes null and void, and the land may be resold for the balance (5 Hill, 228); and hence the debtor has the right to redeem without payment of the balance. And see 1 Barb. 388, where the sale was upon a mortgage.
Vandyke had no lien for the balance of his judgment, after the sale, on the lot sold, and was not, therefore, " a creditor having a lien." (Vide authorities cited above.)
Under the redemption law, a purchaser has no title whatever, but merely a lien till the time of redemption expires. (7 Cow. 540; 1 Cow. 501.)
If the judgment be large, the creditor may often sell defendant's property at a merely nominal price, and if it cannot be redeemed without payment of the whole judgment, one object of the act, the sacrifice of property by unscrupulous creditors, will be defeated.
So, where different parcels are sold at different times and prices, must the whole balance of the judgment be paid on the redemption of either, leaving the others to be redeemed on payment of the bid only?
How can the party coming to redeem know the amount he has to pay? The balance may have been paid, compromised, released, etc., and no affidavit showing the amountdue, as in other cases. (See stat. 1851, 98 sec. 234.)
The New York statutes are substantially the same with ours. (2 Hill, 54.) The respondents claim as creditors, not as grantees.
JUDGES: Heydenfeldt, Justice, delivered the opinion of the Court. Wells, Justice, concurred.
OPINION
HEYDENFELDT, Judge
The sum paid to the sheriff to redeem the land was insufficient for that object. The whole amount of Vandyke's judgment, with interest, should have been paid. The language of the statute is explicit. If the interpretation insisted upon by the respondents be correct, that by the purchase of the property the lien of the creditor purchasing is gone, even for the purpose of a redemption, then the statute would have no meaning whatever.
The legal rules of construction are opposed to such a theory, and require effect to be given to statutes even of doubtful meaning.
The judgment reversed.