Harrison's Estate

Citations

• 217 Pa. 207
• 66 A. 354
• 1907 Pa. LEXIS 687

Syllabus

<p>Executors and administrators — Trusts and trustees — Compensation— Commissions — Services rendered.</p> <p>The rule as to commissions to trustees in all cases is compensation for the responsibility incurred and for service and labor performed. In arriving at the compensation to which a trustee in any capacity is entitled, it is necessary to consider the amount of the estate, the labor performed and the responsibility imposed. These are the elements which determine not only the amount of the compensation, but the right to compensation at all. The mere fact that a person is a trustee will not support a demand on his part for compensation.</p> <p>There is no rate of percentage fixed by-law as compensation for a trustee. In many cases a gross sum is awarded, and this is in some respects preferable, as it leads to an inquiry disclosing the extent of the services rendered by the trustee which greatly assists the court in fixing the true compensation due him.</p> <p>Where executors with a power to sell real estate with reservation of ground rent, sell real estate for part cash and part reservation of ground rent, and it appears that they have effected the sale through a real estate agent who has been paid out of the estate for his services, and it also appears that the executors have received commissions on the rentals for a considerable period, they will not be awarded commissions on the capitalized principal of the ground rents reserved.</p> <p>In such a case as to the consideration for the real estate represented by the ground rent reserved, there was no conversion of personal property, and the executors would have to deal with it and account for it in the future as real estate and not as personalty. In this view, therefore, they would have no right to commissions upon it.</p> <p>Mr. Justice Fell dissents.</p>