Life Insurance Co. of Virginia v. Edgerton

The main question involved on this appeal: Can the grantee in a deed be held personally liable for the payment of a preexisting debt against the property conveyed, if the assumption agreement contained in the deed was incorporated therein by mutual mistake of the parties or by inadvertence of the draughtsman, when such mistake or inadvertence was unknown to the parties until just prior to the demand for payment, and was never ratified by them? We think not.

The evidence was to the effect that the Professional Building Company, a corporation, in Goldsboro, N. C., had a large office building in…