§ 9-13-35.Effect of transfer by attorney; ratification

An attorney of record often has practical control over an execution, and this section addresses what happens when the attorney, rather than the plaintiff personally, transfers it. The transfer is effective to pass title — but with an important carve-out.

The transfer passes good title against every person except two: the plaintiff in execution, and any assignee of the plaintiff who took without notice of the transfer. Against those two, the attorney’s unilateral transfer alone is not automatically conclusive — which is what makes the rest of the section matter.

Ratification closes that gap. If the plaintiff ratifies the attorney’s transfer, the plaintiff is estopped from later denying it, meaning the plaintiff cannot turn around and claim the transfer never bound them. The statute does not require anything elaborate to count as ratification, either: merely receiving the money that came from the transfer is itself enough to constitute ratification. A plaintiff who takes the proceeds cannot later disown the transfer that produced them.