## Facts

- Mary Ellen Knowles and Frank T. Salter were longtime friends and business associates; Knowles often handled bookkeeping in their ventures.
- In 1966, Knowles gave Salter a broad power of attorney over her assets, and in 1967 executed a will leaving her estate to him.
- In 1967, Knowles executed three warranty deeds conveying approximately 1,000 acres in Conecuh and Covington Counties to Salter, using standard present-tense conveyancing language.
- Knowles consulted her attorney about the deeds and expressed a desire to transfer title to Salter; the attorney explained that delivery is required for conveyance and addressed the effect of recording.
- While hospitalized, Knowles asked her attorney to witness a “good delivery” of the deeds; in the attorney’s presence, she retrieved the deeds from her purse and physically handed them to Salter, who kept them.
- Knowles requested that Salter not record the deeds until after her death; Salter complied and did not record them during her lifetime.
- After the hand-delivery, Salter exercised incidents of control (e.g., managing timber operations, holding gate keys, hunting on the property) and received tax invoices at businesses he co-owned with Knowles.
- During her lifetime, Knowles continued to engage in transactions involving the land (selling timber, leasing mineral rights, and selling parcels); witnesses indicated Salter knew of and consented to these transactions.
- Knowles later executed a new will that omitted the disputed real property; her attorney testified she stated she had already deeded most of her property to Salter and understood she no longer held title to the conveyed land.
- Knowles died in 2000; Salter recorded the deeds shortly thereafter.

## Issues

1. Whether the deeds were validly delivered with intent to convey a present interest, or instead were testamentary in character and void for noncompliance with will formalities.
2. Whether Salter accepted the deeds at the time of delivery.
3. Whether laches or Alabama’s rule of repose barred Salter’s claim based on the decades-long delay in recording.
4. Whether the ore tenus presumption insulated the trial court’s legal conclusions when the material facts were essentially undisputed.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Alabama reversed the judgment voiding the deeds and rendered judgment for Salter.
- The court held the deeds were validly delivered and conveyed a present interest; the deeds were not testamentary.
- The court held Salter accepted the deeds upon delivery, and acceptance of a beneficial conveyance was supported by possession and subsequent conduct.
- The court rejected laches and the rule of repose as bars because Knowles recognized Salter’s ownership and did not repudiate the transfer during her lifetime.
- The court concluded the trial court misapplied the law to essentially undisputed facts; the ore tenus rule did not protect those legal errors from de novo review.

## Legal Principles

- A deed delivered by the grantor to the grantee, in a form using present-tense conveyancing language, is strong evidence of intent to transfer a present interest.
- A grantor’s request that a grantee delay recording does not, by itself, negate delivery, acceptance, or the validity of the conveyance; recordation affects notice and priority rather than the existence of the transfer.
- A conveyance is not rendered testamentary merely because enjoyment is expected to occur primarily after the grantor’s death, so long as the deed vests a present interest upon delivery.
- Acceptance of a beneficial deed is generally presumed and may be confirmed by the grantee’s retention of the deed and exercise of ownership-related control.
- Laches and the rule of repose do not bar a grantee’s claim where the grantor acknowledges the grantee’s title and does not assert an adverse claim that would start the limitations period.
- The ore tenus standard does not insulate a trial court’s legal conclusions or misapplications of law to undisputed facts.

## Conclusion

The Alabama Supreme Court enforced the three warranty deeds because Knowles’s hospital hand-delivery, the deeds’ present conveyancing language, and surrounding conduct showed intent to transfer a present interest that Salter accepted, and the delayed recordation and Knowles’s later dealings with the land did not convert the deeds into an invalid testamentary disposition or trigger equitable time bars.


Salter v. Hamiter, 887 So. 2d 230 (Ala. 2004)