Probate & Administration; A Handbook for Executors and Administrators Containing Practical Directions for Obtaining Probate of a Will or Letters of Administration, with Special Reference to the Method of Procedure Under the Customs and Inland Revenue ACT, (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chapter{Section 4 In close connection with the subject then treated of are the rights granted to and the duties which devolve upon Executors and Administrators. Every person is liable at some time or other of his life to be called upon to fill one of these important offices; and in order to ensure the proper discharge of the duties thus imposed, as well as to avoid incurring unnecessary risk, some knowledge of the steps requisite to be taken in carrying out the obligations consequent on such an appointment, is clearly essential. What is an Executor. An executor has been defined by one of the old legal writers as that person whom a testator appoints by will to perform or execute the directions and requests contained in his last will and testament. In order thus to carry out the wishes of the deceased, the executor from the moment of the death of the testator becomes entitled to all his personal property. All the goods and chattels or personal estate, from the time of death, both at law and in equity, at once vest in him, although, after paying the just debts, he is bound to distribute such effects according to the directions found in the will. In a devise of landed property simply the intervention of an executor is quite unnecessary and inapplicable, for under such a gift the lands pass at once to the devisee. Of course, however, it not unfrequently happens that the executors are by the will also appointed trustees of real property, or directions may be inserted in it by the testator that the executors shall sell or dispose of his lands, and in such a case a special power is given to them over the realty. Still it must be remembered in his proper character an executor hasonly to deal with the personal estate of the deceased. See also post, p. 90. A testator may a...