7 Watts 141 | Pa. | 1838
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
The act of 1792 was passed to invest the personal representative, whom I shall call the administrator though he may be an executor, with the power and capacity of the vendor. The mischiéf was that his death, when bound to tender a conveyance before action brought for the purchase money, was a virtual dissolution of the contract; for the administrator could not compel the heir to convey, nor could he, proprio vigore, convey himself. In the removal of that impediment, the object was to enable willing parties, and to compel an unwilling one, to carry the contract into execu
It is suggested that the dower may be wanted for the vendor’s debts, to which, by our law, it is subject. If an argument could, in any casé, be deduced from that consideration, it would be inadmissible here ; for there are no debts to be answered. But it is admissible nowhere.. The property was not converted for payment of debts ; and if it Were, the vendee, being a trustee only of the purchase money, would hold secure from disturbance by the creditors; so that the question is necessarily betwixt him and the widow; for it is he, and not the creditors, who would have the benefit of her dower; For the unpaid purchase money, the legitimate equivalent of the land, the creditors might have had their recourse to the vendor in his lifetimé, and they may have it to his representative since his death )
Judgment affirmed,