Rule 96.27.Proceeds of Sale--How Disbursed.

Rule 96.27 sets the basic order of payment once a partition sale generates proceeds. The court directs the sheriff or commissioner to first pay the costs and expenses of the proceedings out of the money collected. Only after those obligations are covered does the remainder get distributed to the parties in interest.

This clear priority — costs and expenses first, then distribution to the owners — ties together the various cost-generating steps that came before: commissioner and surveyor compensation under Rule 96.13, attorney and guardian ad litem fees under Rule 96.30, and the recording and certification costs under Rule 96.17, among others. All of these get paid before the parties see their share of the proceeds.

The rule leaves the specifics of how the "parties in interest" divide the remainder to the interests already determined earlier in the case under Rule 96.08, when the court fixed each party's share. This provision is the payout mechanism that turns a completed sale into money in each owner's hands, once the shared costs of the litigation have been covered.