2 Ga. App. 675 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1907
(After stating the facts).
Under the will, H. E. Hendrix was not only the executor and the holder of the life-estate, but he was also the donee of an additional power, not ordinarily attaching either to the office of the executor or to the estate of a life-tenant. Viewed solely as a tenant for life, he would have possessed the statutory power of control over the entire estate for the purpose of rentals and leases only to the end of the year of his death. See Story v. Butt, ante, 119, (58 S. E. 388). However, a review of the English cases will show that long before „ the enactment of the statute of 14 & 15 Vict. c. 25, from which our section of the Civil Code (§3093) was adapted which gives the statutory power to the'life-tenant of making a rent contract binding to the end of the year of his death,, or of the British Land-Settlement Acts, which have further extended this power, it was not uncommon for grantors and testators to confer upon life-tenants, or trustees for life-estates, the power of making leases which would be binding after the death of the life-tenant; and the right of grantors and testators to make the grant of such powers has never been questioned, either before or since the passage of the statutes referred to above. Hnder the
The further question that arises is, did Hendrix have the righL to transfer the rent note, which we have just held was lawfully taken by him ? This rent note, under the law, was income. Manget v. Hightower, 63 Ga. 217. He had full power of disposition over the income. The note was not payable to his intestate, but to himself, either personally or in his representative capacity. Tn either event, section 3449 of the Civil Code, regulating the mode of sale of insolvent papers of estates, is not applicable; but the common-law rule which gives the trustee power to transfer a paper
Judgment reversed.