occasion to consider it and the conclusions arrived at have not been harmonious; nor have the conclusions reached even by individual authorities, at various times when the question has been under consideration, reflected either permanency or consistency. The question has sometimes turned upon doctrines of priority as between successive assignees of equitable interests, where one had drawn to himself the legal title or had acquired a superior right to call for it. The solution in these circumstances has been held to depend upon the application of the maxim that where the equities are equal the legal title will prevail. Under similar facts it has sometimes been thought more appropriate in determining priorities between the assignee of an interest under a mortgage, no assignment being of record, and a subsequent purchaser or encumbrancer, to apply the equitable maxim that, as between equal equities, the one prior in point of time should prevail. In the more recent cases, however, where the question has arisen, it has generally turned upon the construction and application of the recording statutes with relation to assignments of mortgages. It will be seen upon examination of modern recording statutes that they are generally so framed as to embrace assignments of mortgages, both Jegal and equitable, as well as other instruments affecting legal title or equitable interests in real property. The tendency thus to enlarge the scope of the registry acts is indicated in the 7th ed. of Jones on Mortgages, § 476, as follows:
“Equitable mortgages are generally held to be within the recording acts as much as are legal mortgages. At first a different interpretation was put upon the acts, and a mortgage of an equity or of an equitable estate was not constructive notice when registered. But at an early day in this country it was established, either judicially or by statute, that all rights, incumbrances, or conveyances touching or in any way concerning land, should appear upon the public records, and that conveyances of equitable interests as well as legal were within the registry acts. * * *
Generally the record of an agreement constituting an equitable mortgage is notice to a subsequent purchaser of the legal estate from the same grantor.”
See also § 479.
In this state the recording statutes have uniformly been construed in the liberal manner prevalent elsewhere. It is held that a bond for deed may be recorded, Shelly v. Mikkelson, 5 N. D. 22, 63 N. W. 210; also that a purchaser under an executory contract has a mortgageable interest
