Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL.
Lady Clackmannan and Hary Bruce v. Her Husband's Creditors
Date: 4 January 1698
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The Lady Clackmannan, and Hary Bruce, her factor, by a bill, represented, That, on the divorce obtained by her against her husband, she has entered to her jointure of thirty chalders of victual, and the house of Sauchie, in which she stands infeft; and the said house being ruinous, craves the factor on the estate for the creditors may be ordained to advance 500 or 600 merks for repairing the said house, seeing it will be their prejudice if it fall. Answered,—The creditors have the burden of upholding the principal mansion-house of the estate at Clackmannan, and it were hard to oblige them to more; and the Lady may well enough, out of her opulent jointure, maintain her own liferent-house; especially seeing Greenock was threatening to evict these very lands of Sauchie on an ancient interdiction. Replied,—The Lady was content to leave it in a sufficient habitable condition if it were once repaired, which is all that law requires of a liferenter; and, when the lands come to be sold by roup, [they] will give the greater price that the manor-place be kept in good condition.
The Lords refused the bill hoc ordine, and would not summarily ordain the creditors, nor their factor, to uphold or repair her jointure-house; and especially when the right was quarrelled, and under reduction; and the creditors did not consent to the reparation, who are now the heritors of the lands and houses.
