If the petition is contested, the court shall make an appropriate order for separate issues.Ĭhapter 240: Section 15.
Two or more persons owning in severalty different portions or different interests, such as are described in section eleven, in the land subject to the mortgage may join in one petition, and two or more defects arising under different mortgages affecting one parcel of land may be set forth in the same petition.
If the record title of land or of easements or rights in land held and possessed in fee simple is encumbered by an undischarged mortgage or a mortgage not properly or legally discharged of record, and the mortgagor and those having his estate therein have been in uninterrupted possession of the land or exercising the rights in easements or other rights in land, either for any period of twenty years after the expiration of the time limited in the mortgage for the full performance of the condition thereof, or for any period of twenty years after the date of a mortgage not given to secure the payment of money or a debt but to secure the mortgagee against a contingent liability which has so ceased to exist that no person will be prejudiced by the discharge thereof, the mortgagor, or those having his estate in the land, or exercising the rights in easements, or any person named in section eleven, may file a petition in the land court and if, after such notice by publication or otherwise as the court orders, no evidence is offered of a payment on account of the debt secured by said mortgage within such period of twenty years after the expiration of the time limited for the performance of the condition thereof, or of any other act within said time in recognition of its existence as a valid mortgage, or if the court finds that such contingent liability has ceased to exist and that the mortgage ought to be discharged, it may enter a decree, reciting the facts and findings, which shall, within thirty days after its entry, be recorded in the registry of deeds for the county or district where the land lies, and no action to enforce a title under said mortgage shall thereafter be maintained. Petition in land court for discharge of mortgages notice.