Administration of Estates: Duties, Powers and Accounting
Core concepts
The personal representative's duties are: to collect and preserve the assets, to pay debts and taxes, to distribute the residue to those entitled, and to keep accounts. Powers include sale, appropriation, partition, investment, and the power to delegate ministerial acts.
The order of application of assets
Learn the statutory order: funeral and testamentary expenses first, then debts, with secured creditors taking from the charged asset. Distinguish specific, demonstrative, general and residuary gifts, and know which gifts abate first when the estate is insufficient.
Accounting
The personal representative must keep clear accounts, produce them on request, and be ready to pass accounts to the court where required. Understand the difference between capital and income in the estate, the treatment of interim distributions, and the assents by which property vests in beneficiaries.
Traps
Questions test the devastavit (wasting of estate assets), the personal representative's liability for interest on late payment of legacies, and the distinction between the administration period and the residuary period. Also watch the rule that a personal representative who is also a beneficiary cannot use that position to gain an advantage.
Rule of thumb
Follow the money: collect, pay, account, distribute. Every step has a documentary trail.