Massachusetts Statutes

Section 11. If an executor or administrator recovers judgment for a debt due the deceased, and levies on real estate, he shall be seized of such real estate in trust for the persons who would have been entitled if the judgment had been satisfied in money; and the real estate so t…

Section 12. Real estate held by an executor or administrator in mortgage, or taken on execution by him, may, at any time before the right of redemption is foreclosed, be sold subject to such right, in the same manner as personal property of a person deceased; and after such right…

Section 13. If real estate so held by an executor or administrator in mortgage or on execution is not redeemed or sold as before provided, it shall be assigned and distributed to the same persons and in the same proportions as if it had been part of the personal property of the d…

Section 14. A reasonable amount expended for a burial lot and a monument, or for the repair, improvement or embellishment of a burial lot or monument, may be allowed by the court as part of the funeral expenses of a deceased person; and the court may at any time, upon petition of…

Section 15. An executor or administrator may pay to a cemetery corporation or to a town having a burial place therein a reasonable amount for the perpetual care of the lot in which the body of the deceased is buried. The probate court shall determine, after notice, to whom the sa…

Section 17. Money paid with the approval of the judge of probate to a corporation qualified to act in the commonwealth in guaranteeing the fidelity of persons and in acting as surety on bonds, or to any person for acting as surety on any official bond given to such probate court,…

Section 2. Accounts rendered to the probate court by an executor, administrator, trustee, guardian or conservator shall be for a period distinctly stated therein, and consist of three schedules, of which the first shall show the amount of personal property, and with respect to a …

Section 3. An executor, administrator, guardian, conservator, trustee or receiver may be examined on oath before the court upon any matters relative to his accounts.

Section 31. The following claims shall, in the settlement of estates by receivers, be entitled to priority in the order named: First, Debts due the United States or debts due, or taxes assessed by, the commonwealth or a county, city or town therein. Second, Wages to an amount of …

Section 4. In settling an account of any executor, administrator, trustee, guardian or other fiduciary, the probate court may require him, or any of them if there are more than one, to produce during the proceedings or afterward, as the court may direct, any securities or moneys …

Section 5. An executor or administrator with respect to personal property or a guardian, conservator or trustee with respect to real and personal property shall account for such property at its appraised value, but he shall make no profit by the increase nor sustain any loss by t…

Section 6. An executor or administrator with respect to personal property including the proceeds from any sale or mortgage of real estate, or a guardian, conservator or trustee with respect to real and personal property, shall be chargeable in his account with all such property o…

Section 7. No final account or discharge of a guardian of a person with an intellectual disability shall be allowed unless at least seven days' notice has been given to the department of developmental services in the case of a person with an intellectual disability. No account of…

Section 8. If real estate of a deceased person is used, occupied or taken charge of by an executor or administrator, he shall account for the income and management thereof in the same manner as in the case of personal property.

Section 9. If a mortgagee of real estate or an assignee of such mortgagee dies without having foreclosed the mortgage, the mortgaged property and the debt secured thereby shall be personal assets in the hands of his executor or administrator, and shall be administered and account…

Section 1. A transitory action shall, except as otherwise provided, if any one of the parties thereto lives in the commonwealth, be brought in the county where one of them lives or has his usual place of business; provided, however, that if the instrument of the crime is a forged…

Section 10. The defendant in an action brought in Suffolk county by the city of Boston or by its collector may, if the action is brought in the supreme judicial or superior court, within thirty days after the day for appearance, file a motion in writing for the removal of the act…

Section 100. No creditor whose cause of action on such bond accrued more than one year before the commencement of the action shall have judgment or execution.

Section 101. If property which has been sold, or appraised and delivered to the debtor, in the manner before provided is attached by several creditors, any one of them may demand and receive satisfaction of his judgment, notwithstanding a prior attachment, if he is otherwise enti…

Section 102. If personal property of two or more part owners is attached in an action against one or more of them, it shall, upon the request of any other part owner, be examined and appraised in the manner provided in sections eighty-eight to ninety-two, inclusive, except that t…

Section 103. The property so appraised shall be delivered to the part owner at whose request it was appraised, upon his giving bond to the attaching officer in a sufficient sum, with two sufficient sureties, conditioned to restore such property in like good order or to pay to the…

Section 104. If such appraised value or any part thereof is so paid, the defendant's share of the property shall thereby become pledged to the party to whom it was delivered, and he may sell it, if not redeemed, and shall account to the defendant for the remaining proceeds of the…

Section 105. If the attachment is dissolved, the party to whom the defendant's share was delivered shall restore it to the defendant, or to the officer, to be by him delivered to the defendant.

Section 106. If real or personal property has been attached in an action, any person, other than the parties, who claims title or interest therein by a subsequent attachment, purchase, mortgage or other title, may dispute the validity and effect of such prior attachment on the gr…

Section 107. The petitioner, or a person in his behalf, shall make oath that his claim is just and legal and that all the other facts stated in the petition are true or are believed by the deponent to be true; and, upon filing the petition, the petitioner, or a person in his beha…

Section 108. If the court finds that a part of the amount demanded in the prior action is not justly due, or was not payable when the action was commenced, it shall order the attachment dissolved in whole or in part as justice requires; but such order shall have no other effect o…

Section 109. The proceedings between the adverse claimants or plaintiffs shall not be affected by any pleading or other act of the defendant in the prior action nor by the judgment rendered therein.

Section 11. A transitory action by or against an executor or administrator may be brought in a county in which it might have been brought by or against the testator or intestate at the time of his decease.

Section 110. No attachment shall be dissolved as aforesaid by reason of a defence to the action which is founded on the laws for the limitation of actions or requiring certain contracts to be made in writing, or by reason of any other like defence, if the court finds that the dem…

Section 111. The court may, upon such inquiry, award to either party reasonable costs and, if the prior attachment is maintained, may award to the attaching creditor reasonable damages.

Section 112. If, during the pendency of the proceedings, the action in which the attachment was made is transferred to another court, the inquiry concerning the attachment shall be transferred to the same court and be there heard and determined.

Section 113. The judgment of the court upon such an inquiry, whether the attachment is thereby vacated or held to be valid and effectual, shall be a bar to any action which may be brought by the petitioner against the party who made the attachment for any supposed fraud or deceit…

Section 113A. Attachments in all cases in law, equity or probate courts of the commonwealth shall be dissolved, discharged or reduced in whole or in part without order of court by any method provided in this chapter.

Section 114. If an excessive or unreasonable attachment, by trustee process or otherwise, is made, the defendant or person whose property has been attached may submit a written motion, in any county, to a justice of the court to which such process is returnable, for a reduction o…

Section 114A. An attachment of land, or of a right or interest therein, shall, unless otherwise dissolved, expire by operation of law at the end of six years from the date of filing the same in the office of the register of deeds in the county or district where said land or some …

Section 115. If the judgment in a civil action is for the defendant, the attachment shall be dissolved upon the exhaustion of all possible appellate review of such judgment if it is upheld. The provisions of this section shall apply to property attached upon a counterclaim when j…

Section 115A. If real property of the defendant is attached in any action and no service is made upon him, the attachment shall be dissolved unless it appears of record that notice of such action has been given to him, in such manner as the court orders, within sixty days after t…

Section 116. An attachment of real or personal property shall be dissolved if the debtor dies before it is taken or seized on execution and administration of his estate is granted in the commonwealth upon an application therefor made within one year after his decease. The attachi…

Section 117. If the officer has, before such demand, sold on execution the personal property attached or a right of redeeming land attached as aforesaid, he shall not be a trespasser, but shall be liable only for the proceeds of the sale after deducting his legal fees and charges…

Section 118. If the officer in such case has, before such demand, paid over the proceeds of the sale to the judgment creditor, he shall not be liable therefor, but the executor or administrator, if appointed as before provided, may recover in a civil action from the judgment cred…

Section 119. The defendant, in an action founded on either of the three preceding sections, shall not be allowed to counter-claim for a demand against the executor or administrator, or against the estate of the deceased.

Section 12. If a tract of land lies in two or more counties, an action relative to it, to which neither a county, the city of Boston nor any corporation named in section eight is a party, may be brought in any of said counties, and the complaint shall be so drawn as to include th…

Section 120. A defendant whose property has been attached in a civil action may at any time dissolve the attachment by giving a bond with sufficient sureties, who shall be approved by the plaintiff or by his attorney in writing, by a master in chancery, or by a justice of a court…

Section 121. Before such bond is approved, the defendant, or a person in his behalf, shall make application in writing to the magistrate, specifying therein the names and residences of the proposed sureties and, except in case the proposed surety is a surety company qualified to …

Section 122. If the attachment is dissolved and the defendant prevails, his costs shall include the fees of the magistrate and the premium or premiums paid for the bond dissolving such attachment, if it be a surety company bond.

Section 123. Such bond and the bond required by section one hundred and twenty-seven shall be filed by the defendant with the clerk of the court to which the writ is returnable, or in which the action is pending, within ten days after its approval, and the attachment shall not be…