## Facts

- Isaiah McHenry was connected with title to the real property in dispute.
- John Stum executed a series of promissory notes secured by a mortgage involving that property.
- The mortgage was not recorded immediately.
- Before the mortgage was recorded, McHenry conveyed the property to Cochran and Strong.
- Cochran and Strong had knowledge of Stum’s mortgage when they took their conveyance.
- Cochran and Strong later conveyed the property to Isabelle Simmons.
- Simmons claimed that her deed was recorded before the mortgage was recorded.
- McHenry sued to foreclose the mortgage for nonpayment and named Stum, Cochran, Strong, and Simmons as defendants.
- The trial court entered a judgment/decree of foreclosure in favor of McHenry.
- Simmons sought review in the Supreme Court of Illinois.

## Issues

1. May a subsequent grantee defeat enforcement of an earlier mortgage under Illinois recording-law principles when the grantee’s title comes through prior purchasers who took with knowledge of the mortgage and the grantee claims priority based on recording?

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed the foreclosure decree.
- The Court rejected Simmons’s attempt to obtain priority over the mortgage based on the later conveyances and recording-related arguments.
- The foreclosure judgment in favor of McHenry remained in effect.

## Legal Principles

- An unrecorded (or later-recorded) mortgage may still be enforceable against purchasers who take with actual knowledge of the mortgage.
- A grantee generally cannot obtain greater protection from a recording statute than the grantee’s predecessors in the chain of title where the predecessors took with notice of the prior mortgage.
- A party seeking to avoid a mortgage based on recording-law priority must bring the case within the requirements of the recording statute and the rules governing notice.

## Conclusion

In *Simmons v. Stum*, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed a foreclosure decree where Simmons, a later grantee in the property’s chain of title, attempted to defeat a mortgage by relying on recording-related priority arguments even though her title derived from purchasers who took with knowledge of the mortgage; the Court left the mortgage enforceable and the foreclosure judgment undisturbed.


Simmons v. Stum, 101 Ill. 454 (1882)