Massachusetts Statutes

Section 50. If an officer has begun to serve an execution, he may complete the service and return thereof, although he is removed from office or although the service cannot be completed until after the return day.

Section 51. If either party dies after any property, real or personal, has been seized on execution, the service thereof may be completed in like manner and with like effect as if both parties were living and the officer may appoint an appraiser for the deceased party.

Section 52. An officer who, upon demand by the creditor, unreasonably neglects to pay money collected by him on execution shall forfeit to the creditor five times the lawful interest of the money from the time of the demand until it is paid.

Section 6. In an action against two or more defendants upon a contract express or implied, the plaintiff shall be entitled to judgment against such defendants as are defaulted and against those who upon trial are found liable, although it is found that all the defendants are not …

Section 7. If in such action any defendants are defaulted, and upon trial any of the others are found liable, the court shall render judgment both against those defaulted and those found liable for the debt or damages, with costs to the time of the default, and against those who …

Section 8. When judgment is rendered upon an award of county commissioners, a committee or referees, or upon the report of an auditor or master, or upon the verdict of a jury or the finding of a justice, interest shall be computed upon the amount of the award, report, verdict or …

Section 9. If in an action for a breach of the condition of a bond, or to recover a penalty for the non-performance of a covenant, contract or agreement, it is found that the condition has been broken or the penalty forfeited, judgment shall be entered for the penal sum, but exec…

Section 1. All the land of a debtor in possession, remainder or reversion, all his rights of entry into land and of redeeming mortgaged land, and all such land and rights fraudulently conveyed by him with intent to defeat, delay or defraud his creditors, or purchased or directly …

Section 10. If the execution is levied at the same time upon several parcels of land, each parcel may be separately appraised, or all may be appraised together. If several parcels are taken successively on the same execution, all the parcels may be appraised by the appraisers fir…

Section 11. Land levied upon, whether an entire parcel or an undivided part, and whether the debtor's estate therein is a fee simple or a less estate, and whether it is in possession, reversion or remainder, shall be described, by metes and bounds or otherwise, with as much preci…

Section 12. If land is held by a debtor in joint tenancy or as a tenant in common, the share thereof belonging to the debtor may be taken on execution, and shall thereafter be held in common with the co-tenant. If the whole share of the debtor is more than sufficient to satisfy t…

Section 13. If the land levied upon cannot be divided without damage to the whole and is more than sufficient to satisfy the execution, the levy shall be made upon such undivided portion of the whole as will, in the opinion of the appraisers, satisfy the execution, and such undiv…

Section 14. A life estate may be taken and set off to the creditor like other land at the appraised value or, at the election of the creditor, the execution may be levied on the rents and profits.

Section 15. If execution is levied on rents and profits, the annual value thereof shall be determined by the appraisers, and the land shall be set off to the creditor for such time as will satisfy the execution at the rate of rents and profits as determined by the appraisers, if …

Section 16. If the land levied upon is under lease to a third person, and the reversion of the whole is taken on the execution, the lessee shall pay to the creditor the rent accruing after the levy, except such part as he has paid before notice of the levy.

Section 17. If the land is under lease as aforesaid and the reversion of a part only is taken, the appraisers shall determine the portion of the whole annual rent to be paid to the creditor, and the lessee shall pay it to him.

Section 18. If a judgment creditor requires an execution to be levied on property which is claimed by the debtor to be as a homestead exempt from such levy and if the officer holding such execution is of the opinion that the premises are of greater value than an amount equal to e…

Section 19. An officer serving an execution shall deliver to the creditor or to his attorney seisin and possession of the land taken thereon, so far as the nature of the estate and the title of the debtor will admit; but if the estate taken is a remainder, reversion or right of r…

Section 2. Estates tail may be taken on execution in like manner as estates in fee simple; and whoever lawfully holds such land under the execution shall have an estate in fee simple therein.

Section 20. If an execution is levied on land of which a person other than the debtor is actually seized, the officer shall deliver to the creditor or to his attorney such momentary seisin and possession thereof as will enable the creditor to maintain an action therefor upon his …

Section 21. The officer shall return the execution, with a certificate of his doings endorsed thereon, to the court to which it is returnable, and such execution and certificate shall be forthwith recorded. The officer shall also, within three months after the levy has been compl…

Section 22. Such record in the registry of deeds of an execution issued by a district court, and of the levy thereon, shall be prima facie evidence of the regularity of the judgment and prior proceedings in the case.

Section 23. The return of the officer on the execution shall, in addition to the other requirements of law, set forth substantially— First, The time when the land was taken on execution; Second, Either that the appraisers were appointed by the officer, the creditor and the debtor…

Section 24. If the execution and return are not recorded in the registry of deeds within three months as aforesaid, the levy shall be void as against a creditor who has attached the same land or taken it on execution without notice of such levy, and also as against a purchaser in…

Section 25. If the execution and return have not been returned or recorded as aforesaid, the levy shall be so far valid against the creditor that he shall not waive the levy and have a new execution, except as provided in section fifty.

Section 26. Land and rights mentioned in section one and rights of redeeming land sold for the payment of taxes and other assessments may, if the creditor so elects, be sold on execution as provided in the four following sections, and, after satisfying the execution with the cost…

Section 27. The officer authorized to serve the execution shall make the sale by public auction to the highest bidder, and convey by deed to the purchaser all the debtor's title to the land or rights so sold. Such deed shall, if the execution with the return thereon has been retu…

Section 28. The officer, thirty days at least before the sale, shall deliver to the debtor, if found within his precinct, a written notice of the time and place of sale and shall post such a notice in a public place in the town where the land lies and also in two adjoining towns,…

Section 29. If, at the time appointed for the sale, the officer considers it for the interest of all persons concerned to postpone it, he may adjourn it for not more than seven days, and so from time to time until the sale is completed, giving notice of every such adjournment by …

Section 3. An officer taking land on execution shall give notice thereof to the debtor, if found within his precinct, cause the land to be appraised as provided in this chapter, if an appraisal is required, and complete the levy without unnecessary delay.

Section 30. Section forty of chapter two hundred and thirty-five relative to adjournment by order of court shall apply to such sales.

Section 31. If land has been seized on execution and further service thereof is suspended by reason of a prior attachment or seizure of the same land, or on the written request of the creditor, the officer making the later seizure shall cause a record thereof to be made in the sa…

Section 32. If land is set off or sold in part under a prior attachment or seizure, or if that attachment or seizure is dissolved, the land or such part thereof as remains undisposed of shall continue bound for thirty days thereafter by the seizure on execution, and service of th…

Section 33. If land or rights have been taken and set off on execution, the debtor may within one year after the levy or, if such land or rights have been sold on execution, within one year after such sale or within the time and upon the terms provided in section forty-seven, red…

Section 34. The debtor may in all cases cause the amount due for redemption to be ascertained at his own expense by three justices of the peace in the manner following: one of the justices shall be chosen by the debtor, one by the creditor, and one by the two first chosen; or if …

Section 35. If the creditor or, in case of a sale, the purchaser pays the debt due on a mortgage to which the land levied on is subject, the judgment debtor may redeem the mortgage from the creditor or purchaser at the time when, and upon the terms upon which, he might have redee…

Section 36. Rights of redeeming land sold for the payment of taxes or other assessments may, if sold on execution, be redeemed in the same manner as rights of redeeming mortgaged land so sold.

Section 37. If an execution is levied on rents and profits of a life estate, the debtor may, at any time before the debt with interest thereon is fully satisfied, redeem the same by paying or tendering to the creditor the amount then due to him; and the proceedings relative to su…

Section 38. If the debtor tenders the amount justly due for redemption, and the creditor or, in case of a sale, the purchaser does not within seven days after the tender release the land as before provided, the debtor may recover it, with costs, in an action to recover a freehold…

Section 39. The debtor may, within the year before limited for redemption and irrespective of any tender, bring in the supreme judicial or the superior court in the county where the land lies, a civil action for redemption, under the two following sections.

Section 4. If land, which was not attached on mesne process in the action in which the execution issued, is taken on execution, the officer shall forthwith deposit in the registry of deeds for the county or district where the land lies a copy of the execution with a memorandum th…

Section 40. The debtor shall in his complaint offer to pay the amount found due for redemption and may set forth any tender he has made. The court shall determine the amount due, unless it has been already ascertained under section thirty-four, and shall require the debtor, withi…

Section 41. The court may award costs to either party, but the creditor or purchaser shall not be required to pay costs, unless it appears that he has unreasonably neglected to render, when requested, a just and true account of the amount due on the judgment, of the money expende…

Section 42. Everything required in this chapter to be done by or to a debtor or by or to a creditor or purchaser relative to the redemption of an estate taken and set off or sold on execution may be done by or to his heirs, assigns, executor, administrator or by or to any person …

Section 43. A levy by set-off or sale shall be considered as made at the time when the land is taken, and the subsequent proceedings and the officer's return thereof shall be valid, although made after the return day or after the removal or other disability of the officer.

Section 44. Notice to the debtor under this chapter may be served upon him personally or left at his last and usual place of abode. If the debtor does not reside within the precinct of the officer serving the execution, and is not found by him therein, such officer shall, in addi…