JONES v. JONES. 453

dered as a part of the proceeds of the real assets taken from
the heir; therefore, must be paid to him, not to the executor
or administrator of his ancestor; and, consequently, can only be
taken from him to satisfy other claimants, who may have an equity
to be let in, after the distribution, by a special application, under
the creditors' bill, or in the suit by the mortgagee, upon the ground
of the insufficiency of the personal estate of the deceased.(y)

There are other modes of judicial proceeding by which real
estate may be changed into personalty, or by which lands may be
converted into money or choses in action. This often occurs under
the acts of assembly directing the course of descents; according
to which, where the lands of an intestate are incapable of being
divided among his heirs without loss, they may, on application to
the proper court of law, be ordered to be sold, and the proceeds
of the sale, or the bonds of the purchaser, divided among the
heirs. But, the exact point of time when the judicial proceeding,
instituted for that purpose, had effected a change in the nature of
the property, was considered as a most interesting question in its
consequences to the relative rights of the parties. As to which it
was held, after mature deliberation, that the mutation of the estate,
from real to personal, may be determined to be complete when the
commissioners' sale is ratified by the court, and the purchaser has
complied with the terms of it, by paying the money, if the sale is
for cash, or by giving bonds to the representatives, if the sale is
on a credit.(z)

According to this rule, the mutation, from realty to personalty,
can only be finally consummated by a series of separate and dis-
tinct acts : first, there must be a judgment or judicial authority
given by the court to sell; secondly, the commissioners, or agents
employed to make the sale, must have reported to the court, that
they had, in pursuance of that authority, made a sale; thirdly, the
court must-have ratified the sale so made and reported; and lastly',
the purchaser must have either paid the purchase money or have
given his bonds to secure the payment of it to the party entitled.
When all these acts have been done, the judicial function of the
court, in relation to the subject, has finally terminated; and the
fond which had been submitted to its operation has been, thereby,

(y) Pow. Mort. by Coven. 983; Bromley v. Goodere, 1 Atk. 75; Flanagan v. Fla-
nagan, cited 1 Bro. C. C. 500; Banks v. Scott, 5 Mad. 493; Mackubin v. Brown,
Mite 410; Wright v. Rose, 2 Sim. & Stu. 323; Fenwick v. Laughlin, post 474.
(z) The State v. Krebs, 6 H. & J. 36.