91 Ga. 199 | Ga. | 1893
The allegations of the bill were, in brief, as follows: In 1875 Reuben Kelly died intestate, owning and possessing two hundred and twenty acres of land; his wife, Mary Kelly, was duly appointed his administratrix, and on January 15th, 1876, having obtained leave of the court and made due advertisement, she put up the land for sale, but instead of conducting the sale according to law she had the land bid off for her by Levi Turner, and on the same day made to him an administratrix’s deed, and he made to her a deed dated January 14th, 1876. No money or other considei'ation of value passed between them, and the transaction was simply a purchase by an administratrix at her own sale. The real facts connected therewith were unknown to complainants until March, 1887, and they elect that the transaction be declared void and a resale of the property be decreed. Mary Kelly fraudulently concealed the truth from them, and went into possession of the premises. On June 2d, 1884, she became indebted to Charles Walker $914.17, and gave her note therefor, due June 1st, 1884, securing it by a deed or mortgage on the property. Walker knew the real character of her
By amendment, they alleged that, the land at the time it was purchased by Levi Turner for Mary Kelly was worth largely more than $1,300, which was his bid, for which sum she accounted in her settlement with the heirs, and that it was then and is now well worth
By further amendment complainants say that their admission in the foregoing amendment, that Mary Kelly, administratrix, had accounted to. the heirs for the $1,400 alleged to have been paid by Levi Turner, and that she had settled with them, was inadvertently made; and that complainant B. M. Kelly did not know that this admission was in the amendment. The truth is she had not fully settled with the heirs, and was due them more than $1,000. She never received one dollar from Levi Turner from the sale of the place, and could not have distributed it to complainants. She had no greater interest in the land than one fifth, and the defendant had no right to proceed against her estate or to sell any greater interest in the land than one fifth. He has received the rents and profits for more than four years, amounting to a much larger sum than the interest Mary Kelly had in ■ the land, and has therefore received the utmost value of the property owned by her in the discharge of his debt, and has no right to be paid the balance of his debt out of complainants and to hold the same against their rights. Wherefore they pray, that the sheriff’s deed be cancelled, and that the land be decreed to be free of any claim of the defendant.