Beebe v. Saulter

Citations

• 87 Ill. 518

Syllabus

<p>1. Administration—sale of land for debts—fraudulent conveyance. An administrator of an estate, under an order of court, can not sell and convey any interest in lands sold and conveyed by his intestate in his lifetime to defraud his creditors. If he does so sell and convey, his grantee can not maintain a bill to avoid the fraudulent conveyance, because no title passes, for want of power in the administrator.</p> <p>2. An administrator derives all his power from the statute, and it only authorizes him to sell lands of which his intestate was seized at his death. A conveyance in fraud of creditors being binding inter partes, leaves no estate, legal or equitable, in the grantor.</p> <p>3. Same—power of administrator in regard to infirmities in title. The law must be regarded as settled in this State, that on an application by an administrator for an order to sell lands of his intestate to pay debts of the estate, the court has no jurisdiction to remove clouds on the title, to settle equities or remove obstructions to the assertion of title, but simply to license a sale of the title of the intestate as he held the same.</p> <p>4. Same—fraudulent conveyance, how avoided. Any creditor, having the right to enforce payment of his claim against an estate of a deceased person, may file his bill in equity and have any conveyance of the intestate made to defraud his creditors set aside, and then have the land sold by the administrator, to pay his as well as all other debts. Such a creditor has the clear right to avoid such a deed for the benefit of himself and other creditors, so that all may share alike whose claims are in the same class.</p>