The wife of a vendee, under a land contract, has no dower interest in such contract, and she is not, therefore, under the Michigan decisions required to execute an assignment of a land contract in order to bar her interest in such contract.6

None of the cases, however, cited in the note settle the quesbeneficial interest), and a mortgagee who is not, in equity (any more than a vendor), the owner of the estate, but is, in certain events, entitled to what the unpaid vendor is, viz., possession of the estate, and a charge upon the estate for his purchase-money. Their positions are analogous in another way. The unpaid mortgagee has a right to foreclose, that is to say, he has the right to say to the mortgagor, Either pay me within a limited time, or you lose your estate,' and in default of payment he becomes absolute owner of it. So although there has been a valid contract of sale, the vendor has a similar right in a court of equity; he has a right to say to the purchaser, 'Either pay me the purchase-money or lose the estate.' Such a decree has sometimes been called a decree for cancellation of the contract, time is given by a decree of the court of equity, and if the time expires without the money being paid, the contract is cancelled by the decree or judgment of the court, and the vendor becomes again the owner of the estate (i. e., equitable as well as legal owner). But that, as it appears to me, is a totally different thing from the contract being cancelled, because there was some equitable ground for setting it aside. Being a valid contract, it has this remarkable effect, that it converts the estate, so to say, in equity; it makes the purchase-money a part of the personal estate of the vendor, and it makes the land a part of the real estate of the vendee; and therefore all those cases on the doctrine of constructive conversion are founded simply on this, that a valid contract actually changes the ownership of the estate in equity. That being so, is the vendor less a trustee because he has the rights which I have mentioned? I do not see how it is possible to say so. If anything happens to the estate between the time of sale and the time of completion of the purchase, it is at the risk of the purchaser. If it is a house, that is sold, and the house is burned down, the purchaser loses the house. In the same way there is a correlative liability on the part of the vendor in possession. He is not entitled to treat the estate as his own. If he wilfully damages or injures it, he is liable to the purchaser; and more than that, he is liable if he does not take reasonable care of it."

6. Stevens v. Leonard, 122 Mich. 125. Dalton v. Mertz, 197 Mich. 390. Holding that a wife's signature was not necessary to the transfer of the land contract by assignment. Daily v. Litchfield, 10 Mich. 29. Beebe v. Lyle, 73 Mich. 114.

tion as to whether or not, where the assignment of the contract covered a homestead, would require the signature of the wife. Compiled Laws, 1915, Sec. 12889, provide with respect to a homestead that the alienation of such land by the owner thereof, if a married man, shall not be valid without the signature of the wife to the same. In view of this statute, there is some question as to whether or not the wife's signature would be required in transfers involving the homestead, and the safer practice would be to procure her signature in assignments involving transactions of this character.7