§ 9-13-60.Taking up of debt to give defendant legal title to property; notice of levy and sale; application of proceeds

Sometimes the property a judgment debtor owns is not land or goods held outright but an equity in property someone else still holds legal title to — a purchaser under an unpaid installment contract, for example, or a debtor who owes the balance on secured purchase money. Subsection (a) gives an outside judgment creditor, other than the vendor or the holder of that purchase-money debt, a way to convert that equity into something a sheriff can sell. The creditor may pay off the debt the defendant owes to obtain legal title, with interest calculated to the current date if the debt is due or to maturity if it is not. Once that payment is made, the vendor or titleholder (or, if that person has died, the executor or administrator) must convey the property to the defendant, or to the defendant's executor or administrator if the defendant has since died. Once that conveyance is filed and recorded, the property can be levied on and sold as the defendant's own.

Subsection (b) builds in notice for everyone with a stake in what just happened. The levying officer has to give notice of the levy and the time of sale to the vendor or titleholder, if known, and to the defendant — or, if either has died, to the legal representative. The statute makes that notice easy to satisfy: depositing a properly addressed and stamped letter in the United States mail counts as sufficient notice, without requiring personal service or return-receipt confirmation.

Subsection (c) then fixes how the sale proceeds get divided, in a strict order. Liens that ranked ahead of the claim the creditor took up get paid first. Next comes repayment of the principal the creditor advanced to secure the defendant's title, along with interest running to the date of sale. Whatever remains goes to the execution under which the sale took place, and then to other liens according to whatever priority the law otherwise assigns them.