§ 9-13-175.Duty of officer to place purchaser in possession; which persons officer may dispossess

Winning a sale and holding a deed is one thing; getting whoever occupies the property to leave is another. This section gives the purchaser a route through the selling officer rather than a separate lawsuit: once the sheriff or other officer sells real estate or a present interest in land under execution or otherwise, it becomes that officer’s duty, on application, to place the purchaser — or the purchaser’s agent or attorney — in possession.

To carry out that duty, the officer may dispossess the defendant personally, along with anyone whose claim to occupy the property traces through the defendant after the judgment attached: heirs, tenants, lessees, vendees, or assignees whose interest arose since the judgment. That last phrase matters — it limits the officer’s reach to occupants whose claim came into being after the judgment against the defendant already existed.

The statute draws a firm line at anyone who occupies under an independent title — a claim that does not derive from the defendant at all, but rests on some separate, unrelated right. The officer has no authority to dispossess that person under this section; a dispute between the purchaser and a true independent claimant has to be worked out some other way. Code Section 9-13-176 then addresses what happens if the purchaser waits too long to invoke this summary route in the first place.