169 Ga. 672 | Ga. | 1930
In the sixth' item of the will, as shown by the statement preceding, the testator expressly invested his son, H. O. Lowden, as executor “with as full and ample power as I [testator] exercised when in life in all matters pertaining to my estate and business, and relieving him from making any returns to any court or giving any bond whatever.” This express provision of the will authorized the executor to buy property with the funds of the estate, to hold and to sell such property as a part of the estate as the testator had power to buy and hold for himself while in life. In Wiggs v. Hendricks, 147 Ga. 444 (94 S. E. 556), it was said: “ Ordinarily an executor has no authority to borrow money and to bind the estate, but a testator may so empower the executor. Every will is a law unto itself as to the powers of the executor, if the testator so provides.”
Counsel for the defendant in error, in their brief, state that in immediate connection with item 6 of the codicil is the following: “Item 1. While the information that my son, George W. Lowden Jr., is dead seems authentic, there is still a lingering hope that he may have survived and may yet return; and should he do so, it is my desire that this codicil be treated as void and of no effect, and that said original will stand as originally published. This item 1 of the codicil is not contained in the record. The bill of exceptions recites that both the will and the codicil were introduced, and that so much of the will and the codicil as is material to a clear understanding of the errors complained of is here stated; but the portions set out therein do not include item 1 of the codicil, and it is not otherwise brought up in the record. For that reason it can not be considered; but if it were properly before the court, it could not change the result in this case, because it merely purports, in the contingency named, to make void and of no effect item
Judgment reversed.