Estate of Merkel

Citations

• 131 Pa. 584
• 18 A. 931
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1143

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. Administrators, by virtue of their office, cannot occupy and lease land, or receive the rents and profits thereof accruing after the death of their intestate; such rents and profits belong to the heir. The powers and duties of the administrators with reference to the land are limited to an application for an order of sale, when this is necessary to pay debts, and to the proper execution of the order when obtained.</p> <p>2. When lands of an intestate are subject to a lease at his death, neither the fact that he therein reserved a part of the rent to himself and his administrators, nor the fact that he afterwards assigned the other part of it to a creditor for application upon a debt, confers upon the administrators any power over, or imposes upon them any duty in relation to, any part of the rents accruing after the owner’s death.</p> <p>3. The personal estate is the primary fund for the payment of all the debts of a decedent, including mortgages upon his realty; and a payment by administrators of interest upon such a mortgage is a proper disbursement, when the amount and circumstances of the payment are such that it is not detrimental to the rights of other creditors, although the mortgage be a first lien and as such not dischargeable by an Orphans’ Court sale to pay debts.</p> <p>4. When administrators have not used or loaned the money in their hands, they are not chargeable with interest upon it during the time that an auditor is engaged in the task of settling the balance and making distribution ; and they are not derelict for not investing, during such a proceeding, as they have a right to expect a decree of distribution at any time, and are required to be ready to pay out in pursuance of-it.</p> <p>5. It is not error to refuse to impose upon administrators the costs of an audit to settle exceptions to their account and make distribution, although the auditor surcharged them with large sums, when strong efforts were made to have o