3,017. Redeeming Land With a Lien on It

Hilchos Arachin Vacharamin 7:15

The situation in the previous halacha is comparable to a case of two buyers. (That is to say that a man owes his wife the value of her kesubah. He sells his property to person A, who resells it to person B.) The wife can tell person A that she has no claim against him, but after person A sells the property to person B, she can seek to recover what she’s owed from him.

Hilchos Arachin Vacharamin 7:16

Such land is redeemed as follows: first we impose an oath on the woman or on the lender as is the case whenever one seeks to confiscate property on which one has a lien. Later, we publicly announce the sale of the property for 60 days in the morning and in the evening, as was previously discussed. We ask how much one would pay for such a field in order to pay the woman the value of her kesubah or repay the lender what he’s owed. A buyer can redeem the field and acquire it even for as little as a dinar so that we shouldn’t say that consecrated property was reverted to secular status without being redeemed. The redeemer then pays the woman or the lender what they’re owed, even if the debt is 100 zuz and the field is only worth 90 zuz, because this is why the person redeemed the field. However, if the amount owed is twice the value of the field, such as if the field is worth 100 zuz and the debt or the value of the woman’s kesubah is 200 zuz, then we don’t redeem it in order to pay the debt or the kesubah. Rather, it is redeemed with no strings attached. This is because if one had to redeem a field under such a condition, no one would ever do so.