PREFACE.

PRIOR to September 1, 1904, the Disposition of a Decedent's Real Property for the Payment of Debts and Funeral Expenses was regulated by a system of procedure which had been enacted in 75 sections of the Revised Statutes and, after various modifications and amendments during the succeeding half century, was codified in 52 sections of the Code of Civil Procedure. Provision was thereby made for at least two distinct special proceedings; and in one of them the real property was converted into money and paid into court, while in the other distribution thereof was made to the persons entitled. The procedure was complicated and difficult by reason of its many particular requirements as to matters of detail, which, however, called for strict compliance; and this made the practice necessarily technical. However, during its long period of development, it had become clarified by amendment and judicial construction.

But by chapter 750 of the laws of 1904 this system was radically changed so as to make an altogether new procedure. Of the 52 code sections, 11 were amended and 29 were repealed while only 12 remained untouched; and by reason of this legislation very many of the reported decisions made in construing the earlier statutes during the last 75 years have become obsolete. Moreover the careful and elaborate treatment of the old procedure, in standard works on practice in the Surrogate's Court like Redfield and Jessup, antedates the present law and is no longer of value. Therefore this treatise is put forth.