2018 Delaware Code
Title 12 - Decedents' Estates and Fiduciary Relations
CHAPTER 27. SALE OF LANDS BY EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS
§ 2710. Application of proceeds of sale; order of payment of debts.

The purchase money of a sale, made by authority of this chapter (all just charges to be allowed by the Court of Chancery, being first deducted), shall be applied to outstanding debts against the decedent in the following order:

(1) First Class. — To judgments against the decedent, which, before the sale, were liens on the premises sold, and to recognizances and mortgages entered into or executed by the decedent with condition for the payment of money or interest, absolutely, and not dependent on a contingency, and which, before the sale, were liens on the premises sold; such judgments, recognizances and mortgages shall be of equal grade, but shall be preferred in payment according to the legal priority of their lien respectively; and if in an action or proceeding upon a recognizance, obligation or mortgage entered into or executed by the decedent with other condition than for the absolute payment of money or interest (but which was by its own force or legal effect, without judgment thereon, a lien on the premises sold), a sum shall have been assessed or ascertained as payable or recoverable by virtue thereof, and judgment or decree, at the time of the sale, has been thereupon given or pronounced, the sum so assessed or ascertained with the costs shall stand in priority, according to the date of the obligation or recognizance, or of the depositing of the mortgage duly acknowledged or proved in the proper recorder's office to be recorded, and shall be preferred in payment according to such priority; but in no other case shall the proceeds of such sale be applied or retained for the purpose of being applied to any recognizance, obligation or mortgage entered into or executed by the decedent with other condition than for the absolute payment of money or interest, in preference to, or to the postponement of, any debt outstanding against the decedent.

But no debt shall be regarded as within this class unless it was before the sale a lien on the premises sold; a sum assessed or ascertained, as mentioned, under this class, being here understood to be demandable by virtue of the mortgage, recognizance or obligation upon which the action or proceeding was instituted.

(2) Second Class. — To other debts outstanding against the decedent, observing the same rule of priority as prescribed by § 2105 of this title.

Code 1852, §§ 1893-1897; Code 1915, § 3427; 35 Del. Laws, c. 204, § 1; Code 1935, § 3887; 12 Del. C. 1953, § 2715; 57 Del. Laws, c. 402, § 3; 59 Del. Laws, c. 384, § 1.