Estate of Taylor

DESMOND, J.,

pro tem.

This is an appeal from an order in probate, discontinuing a widow’s allowance which had been granted in the sum of $175 per month by orders made June 4, 1934, before filing of the inventory, and August 16, 1934, after such filing.

When the allowance had been paid for approximately a year, the daughter of deceased by a former marriage sought “an order modifying the order for a family allowance and reducing the allowance to an amount which the court may deem to be reasonable under the circumstances.” The same petition also requested, among other things, an order “requiring the administratrix (the widow) to close the administration of said estate. ’ ’

Upon the hearing this latter request was denied, because a renewal mortgage executed by the administratrix on December 27, 1934, was still unpaid, the court, at the same time, ordering the allowance of $175 to be discontinued

in tato.

Section 680 of the Probate Code provides in part as follows: “Right to allowance. . . . The widow and minor children are entitled to. such reasonable allowance out of the estate as shall be necessary for their maintenance according to their circumstances, during the progress of the settlement of the

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estate, which, in case of an insolvent estate, must not continue longer than one year after granting letters. ’ ’ In the instant ease the court found “that the estate is,' and has been at all times during the progress of administration, solvent,” so there must have been some reason other than insolvency to prompt the court to terminate the allowance, while the settlement of the estate was still in progress. It appears that after the second order granting the allowance was made, a probate homestead was set aside, September 24, 1934, to the widow for her lifetime, the property being valued at $5,500', subject to an encumbrance amounting, at the date of the order, to $4,700; also that an order was made November 23, 1934, authorizing the widow, as administratrix, “to apply the general assets of the estate towards the. payment of said encumbrance on said homestead.” It also developed at the hearing that the widow was rendering special services to the estate in the care of an apartment house which, in the opinión of the court, entitled her to compensation in the sum of $75 per month. The court declined to vacate the order authorizing application of the general assets of the estate to reduction of the debt on the homestead property although requested by the daughter to do so.