Zach v. Bak

Flood, J.,

Plaintiff’s bill seeks specific performance of an oral promise to give a mortgage on defendants’ home as security for loans made by plaintiff in the amount of $2,000. Defendants filed preliminary objections interposing the statute of frauds as to realty: Act of March 21, 1772, 1 Sm. L. 389, 33 PS §1.

Thus is raised a question which has never been directly decided in any reported case in Pennsylvania: whether the statute of frauds prevents specific performance of an oral promise to give a mortgage as security for a loan. Such a promise is one instance in the class of cases categorized…