Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/129

OWNERSHIP BY FOREIGN CORPORATIONS, lOI V. Alliance Trust Company,^ that a foreign corporation may hold real estate in Mississippi. Under the Statutes of this State, domestic corporations are, with a few exceptions, authorized to hold real property to any amount. " It is idle," say the Court, "■ to talk of the existence of a pubHc policy against ownership of lands by corporations, in the hght of this legislation. No distinction is made between foreign and domestic corporations." In Lancaster v, Amsterdam Improvement Company ,2 the New York Court of Appeals, reversing the decision of the General Term, held that under the laws of New York, a foreign corporation formed to deal in the purchase and sale of real estate, can transact its cor- porate business in that State. The opinion of the General Term went upon the ground, in substance, that the right of the corpora- tion to acquire, hold and convey land within the State was to be determined by reference to two general statutes, which were taken to be the only statutes recognizing the right of foreign corpora- tions to take and hold real property in the State, and y reference also to certain special legislation. The first statute, passed in 1877, authorized a foreign corporation to purchase at a sale under the foreclosure of a mortgage or under a judgment held by it, to hold the land purchased for not exceeding five years, and to convey it. The second, passed in 1887, authorized a foreign corporation doing business in the State to acquire such real property as might be nec- essary for its corporate purposes in the transaction of its corporate business in the State. The last statute, it was thought, was not broad enough to authorize a foreign corporation to take, hold and convey real estate as a business and for the purpose of speculation ; and the first statute was deemed to negative the idea that a foreign corporation has such power. No authority being conferred by the general laws on the subject, it was inferred from numerous special acts of the legislature, authorizing certain foreign corporations to acquire lands by purchase or devise, to be the policy of the State not to permit such corporations to take, hold and convey lands in the State, without being specially authorized to do so. It was said, arguendo, that domestic corporations formed for purchasing, hold- ing, improving and conveying real estate are limited in the amount which they may hold to $1,000,000, unless the corporation is organ- ized for the purpose of erecting in a city a building to be rented 1 15 Southern Reporter, 121. See also. Reorganized Church, &c. v. Church of Jesus Christ, 60 Fed. Rep. 937. 2 140 N. Y. 576.