Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. OF SALES UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE COU.RTS OF EQUITY. We have already seen, that sales under the decrees of the Court of Chancery, or Exchequer, are not liable to the auction duty, and that public notice of a vendor's intention to bid for the estate is not necessary ; it follows, that no notice need be given previously to the sale of an estate under a decree, of the vendor's intention to buy in the estate, if a particular price be not bid for it. Where estates are sold before a master, under the decree of a Court of Equity, the court considers itself to have a greater power over the contract, than it would have, were the contract made between party and party (); and as the chief aim of the court is to obtain as great a price for the estate as can possibly be got, it is iii the habit of opening the biddings after the estate is sold. Mere advance of price, if the report of the purchaser being the best bidder is not absolutely confirmed, is sufficient to open the biddings ; and (a) Se 1 P. Wms. 747. theythey will be opened more than once if a sufficient advance be offered (i); but the court will stipulate for the price, and not permit the biddings to be opened upon a small advance (c): and although an advance of 10 per cent, used generally to be considered sufficient, yet no such rule npw prevails (d). The determinations on this subject, assume a very different aspect, when the report is absolutely confirmed ; and the following general rules may perhaps be laid down. 1st. That Hddings are in general not to be opened after confirmation of the report (e): increase of price alone is not sufficient, however large, although it is a strong auxiliary argument, where there are other grounds. In a case (/), however, before Lord Rosslyn,this rule, although...