Zeigler v. Storey

Citations

• 220 Pa. 471
• 69 A. 894
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 801

Syllabus

<p>Executors and administrators — Register of wills — Decree granting letters —Collateral attack — Payment to administrator — Wills—Probate.</p> <p>If an aggrieved party desires to annul or set aside the action of the register of wills in granting letters of administration, he must pursue the course pointed out by the statute. Being a judicial officer and his decrees having the force and effect as if entered by a court, they must be regarded as conclusive until they are reversed by a direct attack made upon them in a proceeding for that purpose. They cannot be attacked or avoided in a collateral proceeding.</p> <p>A bona fide payment to an administrator to whom letters had been regularly issued by an authority having jurisdiction to grant letters testamentary or of administration, is a legal discharge to the debtor.</p> <p>Where letters of administration issued by the register of wills to a husband on the estate of his deceased wife, show on their face that the wife was a resident of the county at the time of her death, and possessed a personal property therein, and no fraud is shown in the grant of such letters, a payment to the administrator of the principal of a mortgage belonging to the decedent’s estate is a valid payment, although a will of the decedent is subsequently discovered and probated after the date of the payment. In such a case it is immaterial whether the will was probated in another county, or in the county in which letters of administration were granted.</p> <p>Wills — Probate—Time when probate takes effect — Decree of the register.</p> <p>The probate of a will does not take effect until the register of wills enters a decree that the instrument “be admitted and recorded as the last will and testament ” of the deceased. The act of the attesting wit-messes appearing before the register and testifying is not a probate of the will.</p>