Appellate citation: 294 Ill. App. 3d 557.
Opinion by HEIPLE, J.
McMORROW, J., joined by BILANDIC and NICKELS, JJ., specially concurring

This decision concerns property at 4446 S. Greenwood in Chicago. The owner who purchased in 1989 never recorded his title. However, the tax authorities knew who he was. He became tax delinquent, and ultimately lost the property in a 1993 tax sale. Loop Mortgage, one of the parties here, is the successor in interest to that tax sale purchaser.

After the tax sale, a new participant came forward and redeemed the property. He held a 1995 contract to purchase the premises from the one who, in 1989, had sold to the now-tax delinquent owner. This original grantor was still the record title holder because the first purchaser had not recorded.

Loop Mortgage was successful in having this redemption expunged in the circuit court of Cook County, on the theory that the 1989 conveyance extinguished the rights of the grantor and of those with derivative claims. The redeemer countered with the theory that he claimed under the holder of record title.

In this decision, the supreme court refused to hold, as the appellate court had done, that, where a record title holder no longer has any legal or equitable interest in the property, as was the case here, one claiming under him or her can still have a right to redeem. However, in this case, the individual who redeemed in 1995 had a contract to purchase the property. This gave him an equitable interest which the tax law recognizes as conferring the right to redeem.

Although thus reasoning differently than the appellate court, the supreme court upheld the appellate court's reversal of the expunction order.

This decision deals with tax law, not with ownership issues between the 1989 purchaser and the 1995 redeemer. Those matters should properly be resolved in an action to quiet title.