## Facts

- A testator’s will specifically devised to his two children “all my right, title and interest in and to Casa del Tesoro, Inc., a Florida corporation.”
- After executing the will, the testator sold the corporate stock back to the corporation.
- The sale consideration included a promissory note and a mortgage securing the unpaid purchase price.
- At the testator’s death, the note and mortgage remained unpaid and were still held by the testator.
- The surviving spouse, serving as personal representative and residuary beneficiary, sought declaratory relief claiming the specific devise was adeemed because the stock was no longer in the estate.
- The children, through a guardian ad litem, claimed entitlement to the note and mortgage as substitutes for the specifically devised stock.
- The trial court ruled that Fla. Stat. § 732.606(2)(a) entitled the children to the note and mortgage.

## Issues

1. Whether Fla. Stat. § 732.606(2)(a) applies to unpaid purchase-price balances and security interests arising from a sale of specifically devised property by a competent testator, or is limited to sales by a guardian.
2. Whether the lifetime sale of the specifically devised stock caused ademption so that the unpaid note and mortgage passed to the residuary beneficiary rather than to the specific devisees.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s declaratory judgment.
- Section 732.606(2)(a) applies by its terms and is not restricted to guardian-initiated sales.
- The children, as specific devisees, were entitled to the unpaid purchase-price balance and the related security interest (the promissory note and mortgage).
- The specific devise was not adeemed to the extent the unpaid sale proceeds and security interest remained at death.

## Legal Principles

- Under Fla. Stat. § 732.606(2)(a), when specifically devised property is sold and, at the testator’s death, a balance of the purchase price remains unpaid, the specific devisee takes that balance plus any related security interest.
- Subsection (2)(a) is not limited by the guardian-sale provisions addressed elsewhere in the statute; it applies according to its plain language to “a purchaser” owing money to “the testator” at death.
- A statutory nonademption rule can substitute the remaining economic interest from a sale (debt and security) for the originally devised property, preventing the devise from failing as to those traceable interests.

## Conclusion

The court held that the testator’s children, as specific devisees of the stock, took the unpaid promissory note and mortgage received from the stock’s sale under Fla. Stat. § 732.606(2)(a), so the devise was not treated as adeemed in favor of the residuary estate.


Ott v. Ott, 418 So. 2d 460 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 4th Dist. 1982)