INTEREST ON LEGACIES.
A distinction formerly prevailed as to the quantum of interest payable on legacies charged on lands, and such as were chargeable on personal property, for it was deemed but fair that as land never produces a profit equal to the interest on money, so the interest on a legacy charged on such property, should be one per cent. lower than that charged on personalty. But the distinction is now set aside, and whether legacies are charged on realty or personal estate, the established practice is to allow only four per cent. where no other rate of interest is specified by the will. This custom prevails upon all legacies administered in England whether derived from home, colonial, or foreign property.
When interest is payable upon a legacy, can alone be learned from the will itself. Not that interest will only be paid when the will expressly states that it should be, for the greater number of cases are those in which interest has been paid from inference of the testator’s intention as derived from the construction of his expressions. But these are so various, that any attempt to specify the principles on which the construction for interest is based would be futile; a careful attention to the wording of the will generally enables any one of ordinary understanding to ascertain when he may be entitled to interest, when that effect is not plainly expressed. The ordinary rule is, that wherever a legacy is made payable out of a fund bringing interest at the death of a testator, as a mortgage or money in the funds, the legatee is entitled to the interest his share of that fund produces, until his legacy is paid; and wherever the bequest is made upon property not bringing interest, as when a sum is left to a party to be raised out of houses or land to be sold, the legatee is not entitled to any such benefit.