Receiver - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition receiver

Definition :

Receiver, is a person appointed for the collection or protection of property. He is appointed either by the court or out of court by individuals or corporations, Halsbury's Laws of England, 4th Edn., Vol. 39, p. 403, pp. 801.

Receiver. (1) An officer appointed by the court to collect rents, etc., pending a suit. Receivers are appointed in actions for administration; in actions by mortgages or against trustees or executors; in actions between partners for winding up the partnership business, and in a great many other cases. (2) A mortgagee may also appoint a receiver of the mortgaged property, if empowered so to do by the mortgage deed or by separate instrument, without having to apply to the court; and by s.19 of the (English) Conveyancing Act, 1881, reproduced and extended to mortgages of certain incorporated hereditaments, such as rentcharges or annual income, by the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 101, in the case of a mortgage executed on or after the 1st January, 1882, the mortgagee, when the mortgage money has become due, may appoint a receiver of the income of the mortgaged property, or of any part thereof, together with certain leasing powers conferred by the (English) Conveyancing Act, 1911, s. 3, now replaced by
s. 99, (English) L. P. Act, 1925, but such power cannot (s. 24 of the Act of 1881, reproduced by (English) L.P. Act, 1925, s. 109) be exercised until the mortgagee is entitled to exercise the power of sale under the Act (i.e., by s. 20, now (English) L.P. Act, 1925, s. 103, unless default has been made in payment of the principal, after notice, or interest is in arrear for two months, or there has been other default on the part of the mortgagor); and s. 24 also regulates in detail the powers, remuneration and duties of the receiver. A receiver so appointed is the agent of the mortgagor. A practising barrister may be a receiver; a solicitor in the cause cannot, unless by consent, and without salary; nor next friends of infant-plaintiffs; nor trustees.

A disinterested person appointed by a court; or by a corporation or other person, for protection or collection of property that is subject of diverse claims, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 1275.

A receiver may be appointed by an interlocutory order of the court, in all cases in which it shall appear to the court to be just or convenient, that such order should be made [(English) Jud. Act, 1873, s. 25 (8)]. See now (English) Jud. Act, 1925, s. 45.

'Receiver' includes consignee or manager appointed by the court; see (English) R.S.C. Ord. LXXI., r. 1; Re Newdegate Colliery Co., (1912) 1 Ch 468.

Under the (English) Bankruptcy Act, 1914, s. 8, the court may appoint the official receiver to be interim receiver of the debtor's property.

A receiver may also be appointed by way of 'equitable execution' where the property of a litigant against whom judgment has been obtained cannot be made available by fi. fa., elegit, or other ordinary process of execution; as to the appoint-ment of such a receiver, see Harris v. Beauchamp Bros., (1894) 1 QB 801; Morgan v. Hart, (1914) 2 KB 183; R. S. C. 1883, Ord. L., r. 15A. As to debenture holders, see Comp. Act, 1929, ss. 86, 308-310.

In the administration of estates, under the Lunacy Acts, 1890, 1891 and 1908, the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, and the Mental Treatment Act, 1930, it is usual to appoint a receiver of the income and so much of the capital property as the Master in Lunacy may order to manage the property of the patient under the direction of the Master in Lunacy (Mills and Poyser's Lunacy Practice). The term 'receiver,' however, as thus used is not a very happy one'he may be compendiously described as standing in the position of a statutory-attorney or agent of the person under disability; see Re E. G., (1914) 1 Ch 927. See Kerr on Receivers, and Hals. L. E., tit. 'Receivers