Stelter Estate

64 Pa. D. & C.2d 559, 1973 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 122
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Alleghany County
DecidedMarch 29, 1973
Docketno. 3636 of 1939
StatusPublished

This text of 64 Pa. D. & C.2d 559 (Stelter Estate) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Alleghany County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stelter Estate, 64 Pa. D. & C.2d 559, 1973 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 122 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1973).

Opinion

BOYLE, P. J.,

By memorandum opinion and decree entered July 24,1972, the Orphans’ [560]*560Court Division sitting en banc sustained, in part, the exceptions filed by Mildred E. Mutch, ancillary administratrix of the estate of Mary C. Stelter, deceased, and opened, in part, the decree of distribution entered March 17,1972. The case was referred back to the auditing judge for final hearing and disposition of the exceptions.

Pursuant to the decree of July 24, 1972, the auditing judge scheduled a further hearing on the exceptions. The ancillary administratrix appeared and testified in support of them. She was the only witness at the hearing, which was held October 6, 1972.

Exceptant is in the anomalous position of a fiduciary objecting to the confirmation of her own account, which she filed only after being cited to do so by her brother and sister, who share in the estate with her as intestate heirs. Her exceptions amount to a request on her part to be allowed credit for expenditures which she made but did not include in her account. As augmented by a list of additional expenditures submitted at the hearing on October 6, 1972, they total $13,636.91, including debts and doctor’s bills of decedent in South Carolina and elsewhere, funeral expenses in that State and in New Jersey, expenses of managing real estate in Pennsylvania, compensation to herself as administratrix, expenses allegedly made before decedent’s death but at decedent’s direction, travel between Pittsburgh and Orangeburg, payments allegedly made for the benefit of Isabel A. Parker, and advance distribution to her and to Charles J. Stelter.

Following the hearing of October 6,1972, counsel for the petitioning brother and sister and counsel for the ancillary administratrix conferred several times and once with the court with a view to an amicable resolution of the estate. Those efforts were unsuccessful. It is necessary, therefore, to enter a dispositive decree.

[561]*561From the testimony and evidence advanced at the hearing of October 6, 1972, and from the record of the estate on file with the Register of Wills and Clerk of Orphans’ Court the following appear to be the facts, which the court here finds:

1. Decedent died October 25, 1968, intestate, a resident of Orangeburg, S. C., survived by three children, Mildred E. Mutch, Isabel A. Parker and Charles J. Stelter.

2. Mildred E. Mutch qualified as administratrix of decedent’s domiciliary estate in Orangeburg, S. C., on November 22, 1968. She took possession of securities and other personal property in that jurisdiction total-ling more than $9,400. She has not accounted for the administration of the South Carolina estate.

3. The Probate Judge of Orangeburg County has informed this court, through counsel for exceptant, that the Probate Court in Orangeburg does not assert any jurisdiction over the proceeds of the real estate which is the subject of the ancillary administration in this court.

4. The administratrix collected rents from decedent’s Pittsburgh real estate, a rooming house on Darragh Street in the Fourth Ward, City of Pittsburgh, from the date of death of decedent until the sale of the property on September 4, 1969, following her appointment as ancillary administratrix by the Register of Wills of Allegheny County, on August 22, 1969. The amount of rents so collected was $1,241.80 according to her testimony. She will be charged with them in the schedule for distribution.

5. The proceeds of the sale of the real estate, which were shown in exceptant’s account, in the sum of $23,000, as well as the rents referred to in paragraph 4 hereinabove, were deposited by the administratrix in a bank account which she maintained in Orangeburg, [562]*562S.C., for all assets of the estate, whether derived from the Pennsylvania estate or from the South Carolina estate or from another property of decedent’s in New Jersey, which she also administered.

6. Exceptant made payments from the estate account to discharge obligations of decedent and administrative and other expenses of the Pennsylvania real estate, before, as well as after, her appointment as ancillary administratrix in this jurisdiction. She also made payments to Isabel A. Parker and Charles J. Stelter from the estate account before her appointment here, and to Isabel A. Parker after that appointment.

7. Exceptant made no separation of receipts or disbursements between the Pennsylvania, South Carolina and New Jersey estates.

8. Exceptant’s expenditures listed in the exceptions and list of additional expenditures identified by date, payee and amount shown hereinafter, appear to have been incurred in the administration of the ancillary estate in this jurisdiction:

II 3/69 Bell Telephone Co., phone bill for Darragh Street property $ 54.16
1/ 3/69 Peoples Natural Gas Co. for Darragh Street property 113.83
3/ 6/69 Weiss Insurance Agency, to pay insurance bill, for Darragh Street property 60.00
3/20/69 Edward F. Cooke, Allegheny County Treasurer, for license for rooming house 5.00
3/21/69 Duquesne Light Co., for Darragh Street property 52.19
[563]*5633/21/69 Peoples Natural Gas Co., gas bill, Darragh Street property 95.45
3/27/69 Bell Telephone Co. of Pa., Darragh Street property phone bill 78.13
5/ 1/69 Allegheny County Sanitary Authority, sewage bill, Darragh Street property 10.50
5/ 2/69 Duquesne Light Co., electric bill, Darragh Street property 63.57
5/ 2/69 City Treasurer, water bill for Darragh Street property 23.94
5/15/69 Janet Butler, for household care, Darragh Street property 70.00
5/20/69 Peoples Natural Gas Co., Darragh Street property 106.21
5/20/69 Duquesne Light Co., Darragh Street property g3 37
5/28/69 Allegheny County Sanitary Authority, Darragh Street property 11.40
71 5/69 David A.

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Bluebook (online)
64 Pa. D. & C.2d 559, 1973 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 122, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stelter-estate-pactcomplallegh-1973.