When someone dies, their assets and liabilities (collectively their estate) must be dealt with by their Personal Representatives (either Executors or Administrators).
If the deceased left a Will, this will usually specify who the Executors should be.
Where there are no Executors, for whatever reason, the order of entitlement to apply to be the Administrator of the estate is set out in law.
Intermeddling is performing actions that would normally be carried out by the deceased's Personal Representative (and essentially holding yourself out to be a Personal Representative), which include:
Examples of acts that the Court have held do not amount to intermeddling are:
Where an Executor is appointed in a Will, and they have not intermeddled in an estate, they have four options:
Where someone is entitled to apply to be the Administrator of an estate, they have options 1, 2, and 4, above, available to them.
Instead of a Grant of Probate, they will apply for a Grant of Letters of Administration.
Where someone has intermeddled in an estate, they become an "executor de son tort" and may face various consequences:
Suppose you are appointed as Executor under a Will or are entitled to apply to be the Administrator of an estate.
In that case, you must consider if you want to administer the estate before taking any steps that could be seen as intermeddling.
The experienced Wills, Trusts and Probate team at Myerson can help you with all aspects of administering an estate, and you may be able to appoint Myerson Trust Corporation to take the Grant as your attorney if you don't want to act in the day to day administration of the estate.
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Simon has 10 years of experience acting as a Wills, Trusts, and Probate solicitor. Simon has expertise in administering both taxable and non-taxable estates, as well as complex estates such as those containing business and agricultural property, and cross-border issues.
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