Brief introduction to the post-grant section of Wills and Administration of Estates.
Includes explanations of Personal Representatives powers and protection.
These are up-to-date notes used for June 2020 LPC exams.
Particularly useful for section D of the Wills and Administration of Estates workbo...
Wills and Estates Revision
Section D
*Only included what is relevant for the exam
PR Powers
• It is a fiduciary position – PRs must act within their powers when carrying out the duties of
administration – essentially, they cannot do anything that they have not expressly been
given the power to do
• The powers come from statutes
• If the deceased has died intestate – the powers of PRs are determined entirely by statute
• For testate – the powers come from statute but can be extended or altered by the will
Protection for PRs
• Beneficiaries can sue PRs for any loss or mishandling of the estate. PRs must protect
themselves.
Protection from an unknown beneficiary or creditor
• E.g. a beneficiary who can inherit but they are yet unknown (a hypothetical risk)
• PRs can use s.27 Trustees Act 2000 to protect themselves. This provision says that:
- Protection is available by means of advertisement
- PR can give notice by advertisement in the Gazette and in the newspaper circulating in
the district of their intention to make such distribution
- Any person interested in the property to be distributed must contact the PRs within 2
months
- After the 2 months, the PRs may distribute the property to the persons entitled
- The PRs can then not be held personally liable to any unknown beneficiaries – unknown
beneficiaries can ‘go after’ the beneficiaries but not the PRs
Protection from missing beneficiaries/creditors
• E.g. where there is an entitled beneficiary, but no one knows where he is
• PRs can get insurance to indemnify themselves against this, although this is often at the
expense of the beneficiary which they might not be willing to do
• Can get a Benjamin Order – this gives the PR permission to distribute as though the
missing person did not exist, this is common where the beneficiary is missing and
presumed dead, but nobody has evidence or a death certificate
• Alternatively, the money that the beneficiary is entitled to can be kept in a client account
‘waiting’ for when they appear, therefore never closing the estate
Estate Accounts
What comprises an estate account?
• Capital accounts – states all the assets that the deceased had
• Funeral account – states funeral expenses
• Income account – states the income that was generated whilst going through the
administration process
• Distribution account – shows any interim distributions and what is left in the client account
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