More Discussions for this daf
1. Insights - Collecting a Debt Rabeinu Chananel 2. Why did Rav Amram send the litigants to Rav Nachman? 3. A Dinar of Land? Without a Lien
4. Taking possession of inherited property with a lien 5. Kesuvas Benin Dichrin when the estate grew 6. כתובת בני דיכרין
DAF DISCUSSIONS - KESUVOS 91

Tuvya Marcus asked:

The gemara gives examples of properties where the malveh takes property under his lien, but then the yoresh of the loveh buys off the malveh:

(a) was the evaluation of the property (500 zuz) from the time of the lien, or at the time of the collection?

(b) how could the malveh take the second property? if the yoresh had money to redeem the loan, what right does the malveh have to take the lien? he can only go to that if there is no cash to pay the debt?

(c) also, if i understood the case correctly (which i probably didn't), the yoresh is paying 1000 to keep the malveh from taking the second property. why?

Tuvya Marcus, Jerusalem, IL

The Kollel replies:

I must admit that it's tricky to get all the details straight in this Sugya but let's try.

(a) First of all I should point out that the first 2 cases on 91b do not refer to a yoresh (the Gemara does compare them to the Mishnah which talks about orphans, but the cases in the gemara are not about yorshim). In the 1st case, Reuven owed 1000 zuz and he sold 2 houses, each worth 500 zuz, to the same person (see Ran top 50a in Rif pages, and Ritva).

The evaluation of the property (500 zuz)is from the time of the collection. This is stated by the Rosh (10:3) that if the property improved, we write the "Tirfa" according to the value at the time the money is collected.

(b) To get a clear picture of what is happening, I think it is worth looking at the Rambam Hilchos Loveh u'Malveh (19:8) who writes:-

"When a creditor (Shimon) comes to collect his debt, if the buyer (Levi) has money he may pay Shimon the value of the field that he wanted to collect, and Levi then goes to the debtor (Reuven, who had previously sold the field to him) and receives a refund from Reuven. However if Reuven had made the field an "Apotiki" to Shimon (i.e. he promised Shimon that if there will be problems with my repayments, then you have the specific right to collect from this field) Levi may not pay off Shimon with money."

In our Sugya what happened was that Shimon came and collected the 1st field from Levi,and Levi agreed to hand it over to him. When afterwards he came to collect the 2nd field from Levi, the latter decided that he did not want to give it to him but preferred to give him money. This is what the Gemara means when it says "He took 1000 zuz and went to him", i.e. Levi took 1000 zuz and went to Shimon to pay him off and keep the field for himself. The Magid Mishneh (on above Rambam 19:9) writes that neither of the fields was a specific Apotiki - therefore Levi was able to pay Shimon off with money and keep the field.

So you are right in your question - in fact the malveh had no right to take the 2nd property and this is indeed why Levi was able to pay him money and keep the field for himself.

(c) The buyer is indeed paying 1000 to keep the malveh from the 2nd property. The reason is because he happens to like this field a lot, even though for someone else it would not be worth so much. This is why Rav Avira maintains that he only collects 500 in return from Reuven, because this is the going price. (See Rosh 10:3 who gives this explanation).

[Don't forget that when it comes to real-estate things are often very subjective. If someone happens to need an apartment on a particular spot for some reason or other, often he is prepared to pay more than the real price in order to get it exactly where he needs it. See Gemara below 99b that there is no prohibition of overpaying concerning real-estate.]

KOL TUV

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