Real Representative - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition real-representative

Definition :

Real representative. The name formerly given to a personal representative on whom real estate devolved on the death of any person between the 31st December, 1897, and the 1st January, 1926, under the provisions of the (English) Land Transfer Act, 1897.

Prior to the commencement on the 1st of January, 1898, of the (English) Land Transfer Act, 1897 [see (English) TRANSFER OF LAND ACTS], the real estate of a deceased person vested in his heir, heiresses, or devisees, and his personal estate in his executors or administrators. The (English) Land Transfer act, 1897, (60 & 61 Vict. c. 65), reproduced and extended by the (English) Administration of Estates Act, 1925, established a real representative in the person of the executor or administrator of any person dying after the commencement of that Act, in whom all his real estate except copyhold was vested notwithstanding his will, unless, as in a joint tenancy, any other person had a right to take by survivorship, so that one and the same person had the legal title to both the real estate and the personal estate of the deceased.

These provisions, and s. 30 of the (English) Con-veyancing Act, 1881 (relating to the devolution upon the personal representative of trust and mortgage estates belonging to the deceased), were consolidated and extended by the Administration of Estates Act, 1925 (which applies to deaths after 1925, s. 54, ibid.), with the object of assimilating the law of succession to real and personal property. Sect. 1 of the (English) A. E. act, 1925, provides:-
'(1) Real estate (q.v.) to which a deceased person was entitled for an interest not ceasing on his death shall, on his death and notwithstanding any testamentary disposition thereof, devolve from time to time on the personal representative of the deceased in like manner as before the commence-ment of this Act, chattels real devolved on the personal representative from time to time of the deceased person.
(2) The personal representatives for the time being
of a deceased person are deemed in law his heirs and assigns within the meaning of all trusts and powers.
(3) The personal representatives shall be the repre-sentatives of the deceased in regard to his real estate to which he was entitled for an interest not ceasing on his death as well as in regard to his personal estate. S. 2 applies the law relating to chattels real to real estate except that (reproducing and amending the (English) Land Transfer Act, 1897, s. 2, and the (English) Conveyancing Act, 1911, s. 12), all the personal representatives or all the proving executors are to join in a conveyance either of realty or chattels real, and [s. 5 (21)] without prejudice to the rights and powers of a personal representative, preserves the order of administration and rights of property and action relating to real estate in favour of the persons entitled.'

Real estate over which a person exercises a general power of appointment by his will and an entailed interest disposed of by will under the statutory power [(English) L.P. Act, 1925, s. 176] devolve upon the personal representative. An entailed interest or reversion or remainder thereto which was not disposed of by will does not devolve upon them, nor does the interest in a joint estate passing by survivorship or the interest of a corporation sole. The trustees of settled land vested in the testator and not settled by his will may be appointed by the testator (and if not so appointed, these will be deemed to have been appointed by him as) the special representatives of the settled land, without prejudice to the appointment of general representatives, see s. 22 of the (English) A.E. Act, 1925, and Re Bridgett and Hayes, 1928 Ch 163.

Pending the effective creation of a personal repre-sentative the real estate of an intestate devolved on the heir-at-law [Re Griggs, (1914) 2 Ch 547]; it now vests in the President of the Probate Division [ss. 9 and 55, (English) A.E. Act, 1925]; as to the powers of an administrator over the real estate previous to the grant to him, see Re Pryse, 1904, P. 301.

The real representative, by s. 2 of the (English) Land Transfer Act, 1897, held the real estate as trustee only for the person by law beneficially entitled thereto, e.g., for the devisee, and might at anytime after the death assent to a devise or convey the real estate to such person, but under the (English) L.P. (Amendment) Act, 1924, 9th Sch., par. 3, and after 1925, a will cannot pass a legal estate except to the personal representatives, and testamentary dispositions are only equitable. The legal estate or property will pass to the beneficiary only upon assent or conveyance by the personal representatives. See ASSENT.