## Facts

- Plaintiffs bought registered land in Melrose, Massachusetts, and received a certificate of title listing only a bank mortgage and sewer assessments.
- Defendants owned abutting land and used a driveway and garage located on plaintiffs’ parcel.
- Defendants claimed a 25-year lease (executed in 1938 by plaintiffs’ predecessors) demising the portion of plaintiffs’ land containing the driveway and garage.
- The lease was recorded in the deeds registry for unregistered land with a plan, but it was not registered in the land registration division.
- The Land Court found plaintiffs had actual notice of the lease before their purchase and were not purchasers for value without notice.
- Plaintiffs filed a Land Court equity action to remove a cloud on title; the Land Court dismissed the bill, and plaintiffs appealed. The evidence was not reported, only the judge’s findings.

## Issues

1. Whether a purchaser of registered land takes subject to an unregistered lease for more than seven years when the purchaser has actual notice of the lease.
2. Whether recording such a lease in the registry section for unregistered land affects registered land.
3. Whether a purchase-and-sale contract referencing the lease is admissible to prove the purchaser’s actual notice in a dispute between purchaser and lessee.
4. What appellate review is available when the evidentiary record is not reported and only findings are before the reviewing court.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the decree dismissing the bill.
- A purchaser of registered land who has actual notice of an unregistered lease for more than seven years takes subject to the lease.
- The court placed no reliance on the lease’s recordation in the non-registration section; that recordation did not affect registered land.
- A purchase-and-sale contract referencing the lease was admissible on the issue of the purchaser’s actual notice.
- With no transcript, the court reviewed only whether the subsidiary facts found were legally inconsistent with the ultimate finding of actual notice and found no inconsistency.

## Legal Principles

- Under the land registration statute, leases of registered land for seven years or more must be registered rather than recorded.
- Statutory protection for purchasers of registered land applies only to those who take for value and in good faith; actual notice of an unregistered interest negates good faith as to that interest.
- Recording an instrument affecting registered land in the deeds registry for unregistered land does not, by itself, bind registered land.
- In a proceeding between a purchaser and a lessee, a sale contract referencing the lease is competent evidence to show the purchaser’s actual notice.
- When evidence is not reported, appellate review is limited to whether the facts found can legally support the decree.

## Conclusion

Because the plaintiffs purchased registered land with actual notice of the defendants’ unregistered long-term lease, they did not take in good faith as to that interest and therefore held title subject to the lease; the dismissal of the action to clear title was properly affirmed.


Killam v. March, 316 Mass. 646, 55 N.E.2d 945 (Mass. 1944)