Sec 685

The distinction between sealed and unsealed documents, so far as concerns the statute of limitations, is still, in England and in most of our states, preserved. To a simple obligation the statute assigns six years as the period after which, unless renewed by acknowledgment, it ceases to be of force; while to contracts under seal the period assigned by the common law is twenty years, though before that period the presumption of payment from lapse of time may be applicable if there be other circumstances tending to this conclusion.3 And while there is a great variety of legislation in our states in respect to limitations of debts, debts by specialty have assigned to them in most jurisdictions a more extended term of vitality than other debts. - Aside from statutes of limitation, a bond, if unpaid and unacknowledged for twenty years, is irrebuttably presumed to have been paid.4

Sec 686

At common law, specialty creditors (i, e., creditors secured by obligations under seal) had a priority .

over other creditors in the distribution of decedents' to specialty debts estates. This priority is now by statute abolished in England,5 and is not recognized in the United States, either in the distribution of decedent or of insolvent estates. Nor have we in this country recognized the common law rule making a seal necessary to charging of a debt on the real assets of a deceased debtor. And in England this distinction no longer exists.6

Sec 687

An alteration of a deed after its execution works its avoidance.7 If a blank is to be filled in, there must be, in all material matters, a new execution and delivery.1 Without such new execution and delivery, the deed is avoided by a material alteration.2 Thus, where a deed of composition was made between a debtor and certain creditors whose names, it was alleged in the deed, were given in a schedule, but the schedule was not attached until after execution and registration, the deed was held to be void.3 A bond, also, issued by a company, in which the name of the payee was not introduced until after the delivery of the bond, was held void.4 A transfer of shares with blanks as to the names of the purchasers and as to the number of the shares, has been held in England not to be susceptible of validation, after delivery, by filling the blanks through the agency of a third party in the absence of the assignor; and it was held that the practice of the London stock exchange, for sellers to deliver transfers in blank, the blanks to be filled by the purchasing broker, could not be put in evidence to modify this rule.6 But where a deed would be operative without a schedule, and the schedule only goes to explain in detail latent obscurities, the attaching the schedule does not invalidate.6 Thus, an assignment for the benefit of creditors was held not to be invalidated by the omission of a schedule of creditors, when the assignee's name is properly given and the trusts properly described.7 And where a deed is not necessary for the transfer of shares, a transferee may fill in the blanks of a transfer and thus take the title.8

Sealed obligations have longer limitations than unsealed.

Alteration after execution avoids; filling in blanks.

1 Witbeck V. Waine, 16 N. Y. 535; Long V. Hartwell, 5 Vroom L. 116; Cox V. Henry, 32 Penn. St. 18.

2 Drake V. Mitchell, 3 East, 251; Twopenny V. Young, 3 B. & C. 210; Solly V. Forbes, 2 B. & B. 38; Ban-orgee V. Hovey, 5 Mass. 11; Charles V. Scott, 1 S. & R. 294; and cases above cited. See also cases cited infra, sec 1039.

3 Leake, 2d ed. 967. 4 Wh. on EV. sec 1360, and cases there cited.

5 Leake, 2d ed. 148.

6 Leake, 2d ed. 149. As to common law, see 2 Black. Com. 463.

7 Infra, sec 695; Powell V. Duff, 3 Camp. 181; Cambridge Bank V. Hyde, 131 Mass. 77.