H.B. 4239

(By Delegates Trump, Cann, Manuel, Stalnaker,
Willison and Everson)

[Introduced February 2, 1998; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]

A BILL to amend and reenact section eleven, article one, chapter forty-four of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-one, as amended, relating generally to the appointment of a sheriff as the administrator of an estate.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of West Virginia:
That section eleven, article one, chapter forty-four of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-one, as amended , be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1. PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVES.

§44-1-11. When sheriff to administer estate.

If at any time two months elapse without there being an executor or administrator of the estate of a decedent (except during a contest about the decedent's will, or during the infancy or absence of the executor), the court or clerk before whom the will was admitted to probate, or having jurisdiction to grant administration, shall on motion of any person order the sheriff of the county to take into his possession the estate of such decedent and administer the same; whereupon such sheriff, without taking any other oath of office, or giving any other bond or security than he may have before taken or given, shall be the administrator or administrator de bonis non of the decedent, with his will annexed if there be a will, and shall be thenceforward entitled to all the rights and bound to perform all the duties of such administrator. For his services as administrator of an estate, the sheriff shall receive from the estate a fee of five percent of the estate subject to administration, which fee shall be deposited to the treasury of the county. Every such sheriff shall, in the month of January in each year, make a written report to the county court of his county, and if the court is not in session, then he shall file such report with the clerk of such court, of the receipts and disbursements of each estate so committed to him, and at the end of his term of office make a complete report and settlement of each estate so committed to him, and shall turn over to his successor in office all moneys or property in his hands remaining unadministered. Such court or clerk may, however, at any time afterward revoke such order and allow any other person to qualify as such executor or administrator; and the court, or the clerk thereof, shall, at the expiration of the term of office of any such sheriff, commit to his successor in office any and all estates which may appear, by the final report above required to be made by the sheriff at the end of his term, not to have been fully administered. Every sheriff to whom any estate shall have been committed, as aforesaid, who shall fail to render any report as required herein, or who shall fail to make such settlement within two months after the end of his term of office shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars.

Note: The purpose of this bill is to clarify that a sheriff acting as the administrator of the estate of a decendent is permitted by law to charge a normal fiduciary's fee, which shall be paid to the county treasury.