Chilivis v. Tumlin Woods Realty Assoc., Inc., 250 Ga. 179, 297 S.E.2d 4 (1982)
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited opinion.
- Citation: 250 Ga. 179, 297 S.E.2d 4 (1982)
- Court / Year: Supreme Court of Georgia, 1982
- Topic tags: equitable_interest · bond_for_title · security_interest · equitable_conversion
- Facts: Litigation over priority of interests in an Athens, Georgia apartment complex, arising from a security deed and an attempt to foreclose. The court had to characterize the nature of the interests created by a bond for title in the chain.
- Holding: A bond for title creates an equitable interest in the buyer and a
security interest in the seller of land; an equitable estate arises in favor of the
holder of the bond, limited by the amount of the holder’s investment (250 Ga. at
182–83).
- Attribution caution: The widely-quoted sentence that a contract for deed “is for all practical purposes no different from a bond for title” is not language from the Chilivis opinion itself. It is the Bankruptcy Court’s characterization in In re Prescott, 285 B.R. 763, 766 (Bankr. S.D. Ga. 2001), which cites Chilivis, 250 Ga. at 182–83 for the underlying equitable-interest proposition. Chilivis speaks of the “bond for title”; Prescott is the case that extends the characterization to the modern “contract for deed” label. Cite Prescott (citing Chilivis) for that exact formulation.
- Reasoning: Georgia recognizes equitable conversion: under a bond for title / contract for deed, the buyer holds equitable title (the beneficial, investment-measured interest) while the seller retains bare legal title as security for the unpaid price. This is the same security relationship the security-deed statute (O.C.G.A. § 44-14-60) reflects in the loan context.
- Practical impact for CFD operators/buyers: The controlling statement that a Georgia bond for title creates an equitable interest in the buyer / security interest in the seller; via In re Prescott’s application of Chilivis, a contract for deed is treated as functionally a bond for title — so the bond-for-title body of law (equitable interest, security characterization, restitution-on-rescission) governs CFDs. Confirms the buyer is an equitable owner, not a mere tenant, which shapes default remedies and forecloses summary dispossessory treatment of a contested default.
- Good-law status: Good law; the leading modern Georgia Supreme Court statement on the nature of the bond-for-title / contract-for-deed interest.
- Source (retrieved): https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1982/38855-1.html (case located via Justia; equitable-interest holding corroborated across multiple sources). The “for all practical purposes no different from a bond for title” formulation traced to In re Prescott, 285 B.R. 763, 766 (Bankr. S.D. Ga. 2001) (citing Chilivis, 250 Ga. at 182–83), confirmed via CaseMine. · Verified: 2026-06-10 (second-pass re-verification)
Changelog
- 2026-06-10 — Second-pass citation audit. Corrected mis-attribution: the quote a contract for deed “is for all practical purposes no different from a bond for title” was previously presented as Chilivis’s own language. It is in fact In re Prescott’s characterization (285 B.R. 763, 766) citing Chilivis, 250 Ga. at 182–83. Chilivis’s own holding (equitable interest in buyer, security interest in seller, estate limited by investment) is confirmed and unchanged. Parallel cite 250 Ga. 179, 297 S.E.2d 4 (1982) confirmed correct.
Jurisdictions that follow / cite: georgia
Disclaimer. Legal information, not legal advice. Confirm the opinion is still good law before relying on it.