Union Savings Building & Loan Ass'n v. Henderson

81 S.W.2d 26, 190 Ark. 809, 1935 Ark. LEXIS 129
Supreme Court of Arkansas·Decided April 8, 1935·No. 4-3817·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

Smith, J.

Appellant is a building and loan association organized and operating under the laws of this State. Appellees applied to the association on October 30, 1929, for a loan of $7,000, which was consummated on December 2, 1929, in accordance with the plan under which appellant and other similar associations operated. Under this plan appellees gave appellant a mortgage on certain real estate in the city of Rogers securing a note for the $7,000 borrowed, due forty-four months after date, and bearing interest until maturity at nine per cent., and after maturity at ten per cent, until paid. At the same time, and as a part of the same transaction, appellees purchased from appellant Installment Savings Certificate No. L-2185, the recitals of which are to the following effect: In consideration of the payment to appellant “of $140, payable monthly in advance on the first day of each and every month for 44 consecutive months from the date hereof,” the appellant association promised to pay, upon surrender of the certificate by the owner thereof, “the sum of $7,000, being the matured value of this certificate. ’ ’ Appellees agreed to pay $49 in addition as interest on the loan, so that the monthly payments amounted to $389. The certificate provides that, should the monthly payments at any time be three months in arrears, it should automatically be canceled, and the owner thereof should receive credit for the withdrawal value of the certificate on the date of the last payment, which was payable upon surrender of the certificate properly indorsed.

It was contemplated that, if all the payments of $189 each were made when due, the certificate would then have a value equal to the amount of the original loan, and might, at the option of the borrower, be used in payment of the loan, thereby canceling the mortgage on the land. .

Appellees made without default thirty-nine continuous payments of $189 each, the last being' made on February 15, 1933, covering’ the payment due for that month. At that time apyiellees lacked only five pa3’inent.s of $189 each of having matured the certificate, and, if they had been made, the stock certificate would have been canceled and applied to the loan, and the $7,000 note surrendered, and the debt extinguished and the mortgage canceled, had the borrowers so elected.

Some time in February, 1933, a question arose as to the ability of appellant association to meet the demands of creditors at the end of that month. The secretary of the association testified that: “It was fast beginning to be a question to prove the association to be solvent, and the board of directors voted to go into liquidation.” Appellees were not then in default in their payments.

The association made application to the Bank Commissioner for authority to liquidate under the provisions of act 54 of the Acts of 1933 (Acts 1933, page 148). This authority was granted, and the Bank Commissioner ordered the association to credit each borrower with the withdrawal value of his certificate. The cash surrender value of appellees ’ stock at that time "was $5,621.35 after paying interest on the loan to that date, so that the net balance due the association was the difference between the amount of the original loan of $7,000 and the cash surrender value of $5,621.35, or $1,378.65. Upon appellees’ failure and refusal to pay this balance, this suit was begun July 7,1933, to foreclose the mortgage given to secure it, together with interest thereon from the date on which the association was directed to credit the withdrawal value of appellees ’ certificate on their loan.

Act 54 of the Acts of 1933 is an act to provide for and to prescribe the conditions and regulations under which building and loan associations may voluntarily liquidate their affairs. It provides that the board of directors of an association shall pass a resolution providing for liquidation, and shall furnish the State Bank Commissioner with a copy thereof, together with a statement of the assets and liabilities of the association duly verified. Upon approval of the resolution, and of the plan of dissolution it is made the duty of the Bank Commissioner to make an order that “such association shall not issue any further stock or certificates, nor make any further loans, and all of its income and receipts in excess of the actual expenses of such liquidation shall first he applied towards the discharge of its liabilities for borrowed money, and the officers of such association, under the direction of its board of directors, and the supervision of the Bank Commissioner shall then proceed with such liquidation by reducing the assets of such association to cash and distributing the same among its shareholders and certificateholders in proportion to the withdrawal value of their respective holdings, as is existing at the date of the passage of such resolution for voluntary liquidation.”

There appears to have been an exact and literal compliance with the provisions of this statute.

It was the view of the court below that, inasmuch as appellees had made their payments without default, they should have the right to complete their remaining payments. — five in number — with the interest thereon at ten per cent, from the due date of each payment to the date of the rendition of the decree. The sum thus adjudged to be due amounted to $1,082.70, and it was decreed that the mortgage be foreclosed in satisfaction thereof if the same was not paid within the time given for payment.

If only the interests of the association and the appellees were involved, this decree would be correct, but the interests of many others are involved, either as borrowers and investors or as creditors, and the rights and liabilities of all must be determined in accordance with the general plan under which the association was authorized by law to operate.

The rule to be here applied was stated in the case of Courtney v. Reap, 184 Ark. 112, 40 S. W. (2d) 785, where earlier cases on the subject were reviewed. The later cases of Lacefield v. Taylor, 185 Ark. 648, 48 S. W. (2d) 832, and Home Bldg. & Savings Ass’n v. Clay, 188 Ark. 943, 68 S. W. (2d) 103, are to the same effect.

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Union Savings Building & Loan Ass'n v. Henderson, 81 S.W.2d 26, 190 Ark. 809, 1935 Ark. LEXIS 129 (Ark. 1935).

81 S.W.2d 26 (Union Savings Building & Loan Ass'n v. Henderson) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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