Rule 96.24.Sheriff or Commissioner to Collect Purchase Money and Make Deed to Purchaser.

Rule 96.24 covers the closing mechanics of a partition sale, once a buyer has been found and the sale itself has taken place. The sheriff or commissioner who conducted the sale collects the purchase money from the buyer and disburses it according to the court's order — connecting to the distribution scheme in Rule 96.27, which directs how costs, expenses, and the remainder get paid out.

The same officer must also execute and deliver the deed conveying the property to the purchaser. The rule specifies that this deed must be acknowledged or proved the same way conveyances made by a sheriff selling land under execution are acknowledged or proved, tying the partition deed process to a familiar, established formality used elsewhere in Missouri property law.

The rule then addresses an unusual but real possibility: what if the buyer dies before the deed is delivered? Instead of leaving the sale in limbo, the rule lets the court, upon proof of the buyer's death and proof of who is entitled to the property, order the sheriff to execute, acknowledge, and deliver the deed directly to those successors. This provision prevents a completed sale from becoming legally stuck merely because the buyer did not survive long enough to receive the deed in person.