May's Estate

Citations

• 218 Pa. 64
• 67 A. 120
• 1907 Pa. LEXIS 456

Syllabus

<p>Courts — Jurisdiction—Supreme and Superior Courts — Amount in controversy.</p> <p>Where a creditor of a decedent is awarded a claim in the orphans’ court, amounting to more than 11,500, an appeal lies to the Supreme Court, although the legatee appealing has an interest in the fund in controversy to an amount less than $1,500. The amount of the award fixes the jurisdiction.</p> <p>Vendor and Vendee — Mortgage—Taking subject to mortgage.</p> <p>A vendee of property taken expressly subject to a mortgage, makes the debt his own, and if, on the foreclosure of the mortgage there is -a deficiency which the vendor is obliged to pay, he may recover the amount of his loss in an action against the vendee.</p> <p>In such a case the words “ under and subject ” are to be construed as a covenant of indemnity for the protection of the grantor, and the liability of the vendee, under his implied covenant, is not simply deterris but is coextensive with the original obligation.</p> <p>The Act of June 12,1878, P. L. 205, does not affect the liability of the grantee to his grantor, but only applies to the relations between the grantee and the holder of the incumbrance.</p> <p>Blood v. Crew Levick Co., 171 Pa. 328, explained and distinguished.</p> <p>The rule that a vendor may recover from the vendee the amount of a deficiency does not apply where the vendor and the mortgagee enter into an arrangement by which competition is stifled at a sheriff’s sale under the mortgage, so as to place the property in the hands of the vendor for an amount less than the amount of the mortgage. Where in such a case it appears that the vendor was willing to bid up the property to an amount sufficient to pay the mortgage, and that he so instructed his attorney, it will be presumed, when he only bid a nominal amount, that he accepted the property as the full value of the mortgaged debt.</p> <p>Vendor and Vendee — Taxes—Liability.</p> <p>Taxes on real estate are a personal liability against the owner at the