Definition
To buy back; to regain ownership or possession of property by satisfying a debt, obligation, or other encumbrance associated with it. The term carries several related but distinct legal meanings:
1. Mortgage redemption. To pay off a mortgage debt and thereby restore unencumbered title to the mortgagor. The right to redeem mortgaged property — the equity of redemption — is one of the most significant protections available to a debtor in real property law.
2. Tax-sale redemption. To repurchase property that has been sold at a tax sale by paying the purchase price plus statutory penalties and interest within a prescribed period. Most jurisdictions create a specific statutory right of redemption for this purpose, with a defined window in which the original owner may act.
3. Pledge and personal property. By analogy, the act by which a pledgor pays the underlying debt and recovers the article bailed or pledged as security.
4. Securities and financial instruments. To convert a bond, security, preferred share, or similar instrument into cash or its stated value, either at maturity or upon exercise of a call option. A government or corporation "redeems" bonds when it pays them off.
5. Statutory and equitable redemption. Statutes in many jurisdictions grant a right of redemption following foreclosure — allowing the debtor to reclaim property even after a judicial sale. This statutory right is distinct from the equitable right, which exists before foreclosure.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To recover ownership of something by buying it back; to liberate by payment of ransom; to save or rescue; to atone for; to convert a security into cash; to restore honor or worth.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To purchase back; to regain possession by payment of a stipulated price; to ransom or liberate from captivity or obligation; to rescue from forfeiture.
The common meaning is broad and includes moral, religious, and figurative senses — redeeming one's reputation, redeeming a voucher, being "redeemed" from sin. The legal meaning is narrower and almost always transactional: it concerns the satisfaction of a specific obligation in order to recover property or extinguish a security interest. The moral and salvific senses are legally irrelevant. Researchers should also distinguish the everyday use of "redeem" for coupons, loyalty points, and gift cards — common in commercial life — from the technical legal concept of redemption, which involves property rights, priorities, and often statutory deadlines.
Common Confusion
Equitable vs. statutory redemption. These are frequently conflated. The equitable right of redemption exists before foreclosure is complete and allows a mortgagor to cure the default by paying the debt in full. The statutory right of redemption — where it exists — arises after foreclosure and allows the former owner to reclaim the property within a fixed period by paying the foreclosure sale price. Historical sources often discuss only the equitable right; the statutory right is a later legislative development and may not appear clearly in older dictionaries.
Redemption vs. right of first refusal. Redeeming property and holding a right of first refusal are not the same. Redemption rights are triggered by default and operate to undo an enforcement action. A right of first refusal is a contractual priority right exercised before a sale.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Equity of redemption: The mortgagor's inherent right in equity to reclaim mortgaged property upon payment of the debt, interest, and costs, even after the legal deadline in a conditional conveyance has passed. Courts of equity developed this right specifically to resist lenders' attempts to extinguish it through "clog" provisions.
Statutory right of redemption: A post-sale right created by statute, allowing a debtor (and sometimes junior lienholders) to recover foreclosed property within a defined window after a foreclosure sale.
Right of redemption in tax sales: A parallel statutory right specific to properties sold for unpaid taxes, typically with its own timeline and procedural requirements distinct from mortgage redemption.
Redemption of pledged goods: The pledgor's right to recover personal property held as security by tendering the underlying obligation.
Why It Matters in Research
Temporal layers matter. The term "redeem" appears across centuries of legal materials with consistent core meaning, but the procedural architecture around it has changed substantially. Historical sources — including all four shelf dictionaries — treat redemption primarily as an equitable concept tied to mortgage law. Statutory redemption rights, which now define the practical landscape in most U.S. jurisdictions, are largely absent from or underdeveloped in these older sources. Researchers working with 19th- or early-20th-century materials should not assume that the redemption framework described there reflects current law.
Deadlines are jurisdiction-specific and research-critical. Redemption rights are almost always time-limited, and the limits vary sharply by state and by type of proceeding (mortgage foreclosure, tax sale, judgment lien enforcement). A historical source will not tell a researcher how long a debtor has to redeem in a given state under current law. The shelf dictionaries should be used to understand the concept and its doctrinal origins, not for procedural timelines.
Securities law usage. The financial-instrument meaning of "redeem" is well established in modern securities and bond law but is barely present in the historical shelf dictionaries, which were written before modern capital markets developed their current vocabulary. Researchers approaching 20th- or 21st-century commercial or securities materials should be alert to this distinct usage, which carries its own body of regulatory law.
Corpus connections. Entries for MORTGAGE, FORECLOSURE, EQUITY OF REDEMPTION, PLEDGE, and TAX SALE are essential companion reads. The concept of clogging the equity of redemption — attempts by lenders to contractually eliminate or shorten the right — appears in equity jurisprudence and connects to the Law Mind Encyclopedia entries on equitable relief and mortgage law.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four shelf sources agree at the core: to redeem is to buy back, and the paradigm case is liberating mortgaged property by paying the secured debt. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier align closely, framing redemption as the payoff of a mortgage that revests unencumbered title. Anderson adds useful conceptual context by noting the analogy to pledges and introducing the equity of redemption, though without fully elaborating the equitable doctrine.
Bouvier's is the most analytically careful of the four, noting that redemption language applies to conditional sales — where the seller's performance of a condition renders the sale ineffective — and not merely to mortgage payoffs. This distinction between redemption in a conditional sale context and redemption in a straightforward mortgage is one that later legal development largely collapsed, but it matters for reading pre-20th-century instruments and cases.
None of the four sources engages with statutory post-foreclosure redemption rights in any depth, and none addresses the securities-law sense of the term. This reflects the period in which they were written, not any error on their part, but it means researchers should treat them as authoritative for equitable and common-law redemption doctrine and look elsewhere for statutory and regulatory frameworks.
Jurisdictional Note
Statutory redemption rights after foreclosure vary considerably by state — some states provide no post-sale redemption right at all, while others allow periods ranging from several months to over a year. Tax-sale redemption periods similarly differ. Researchers should verify the applicable state statute rather than relying on any general statement in a legal dictionary.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Redemption
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Equity of Redemption
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Mortgage
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Tax Sale