5 However, as the instituted heirs, when (as so often was the case)
they were requested to transfer the whole or nearly the whole of an
inheritance, declined to accept for what was no benefit, or at most a
very slight benefit, to themselves, and this caused a failure of the
trusts, afterwards, in the time of the Emperor Vespasian, and during the
consulate of Pegasus and Pusio, the senate decreed that an heir who
was requested to transfer the inheritance should have the same right
to retain a fourth thereof as the lex Falcidia gives to an heir charged
with the payment of legacies, and gave a similar right of retaining the
fourth of any specific thing left in trust. After the passing of this
senatusconsult the heir, wherever it came into operation, was sole
administrator, and the transferee of the residue was in the position of
a partiary legatee, that is, of a legatee of a certain specified portion
of the estate under the kind of bequest called participation, so that
the stipulations which had been usual between an heir and a partiary
legatee were now entered into by the heir and transferee, in order to
secure a rateable division of the gains and losses arising out of the
inheritance.
6 Accordingly, after this, if no more than threefourths of the
inheritance was in trust to be transferred, then the SC. Trebellianum
governed the transfer, and both were liable to be sued for the debts
of the inheritance in rateable portions, the heir by civil law,
the transferee, as quasiheir, by that enactment. But if more than
threefourths, or even the whole was left in trust to be transferred, the
SC. Pegasianum came into operation, and when once the heir had accepted,
of course voluntarily, he was the sole administrator whether he retained
onefourth or declined to retain it: but if he did, he entered into
stipulations with the transferee similar to those usual between the heir
and a partiary legatee, while if he did not, but transferred the whole
inheritance, he covenanted with him as quasi-purchaser. If an instituted
heir refuse to accept an inheritance from a suspicion that the
liabilities exceed the assets, it is provided by the SC. Pegasianum
that, on the petition of the person to whom he is requested to transfer,
he shall be ordered by the praetor to accept and transfer it, whereupon
the transferee shall be as capable of suing and being sued as the
transferee under the SC. Trebellianum. In this case no stipulations are
necessary, because by a concurrent operation of the two senatusconsults
both the transferor is protected, and all actions relating to the
inheritance pass to and against the transferee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account