Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL.
James Riddoch v. The Countess of Rothes
Date: 6 January 1693
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James Riddoch's pursuit against the Countess of Rothes was advised; and the Lords thought it, upon the one hand, severe to restrict purchases of lands, that they should acquire in no other rights, but precisely those that were necessary, and to give the remanent of the price to the debtor who sells; and, on the other hand, that it was unjust to givebuyers an absolute and arbitrary power to give away the price to what creditors they please.
Therefore, the Lords in the general found, that here between the buyer and seller, any payments made by Rothes, or Mr. James Cheap, or Balbedy, his authors, to Salton, Sir Alexander Ramsay, or other real creditors affecting the lands of Cluny, principally disponed, or the warrandice lands of Gilmerton, were to be allowed to the Lady Rothes for exhausting the price, whether they were preferable rights or not, if they affected the subject. But if they were palpably or evidently defective rights, allowed Riddoch to be heard against them. Some were for taking the oath of Salton, the Master of Stairs, and other creditors yet alive, what they gave down of their sums; that thereby it might give a probable guess what abatements were got from others whose rights were not so valid and preferable as theirs.
