Assets - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition assets

Definition :

Assets [fr. assetz, Nor.-Fr., i.e., satis, Lat.; assez, Fr., sufficient; in Old English it was commonly written asseth], the property of a deceased person, which is chargeable with, and applicable to the payment of, his debts and legacies; the property of any person, with reference to bankruptcy, available for division amongst his creditors; the whole property of a person, without any such reference. For purposes of the administration of the estate of a deceased person assets were, before 1925, divided into two classes, legal and equitable. Legal assets comprised all property to which the personal representative became entitled virtute officii and for which he would have been answerable in an action at common law brought against him by a creditor; they were administered in accordance with certain rules of priority. Equitable assets, on the other hand were those which would only be made available for the payment of debts through the operation of a decree or order of a Court of Equity; they were treated as a trust fund, and on the principle of equality being equity are divided pari passu among the creditors without regard to the order of priority which obtained in the cases of legal assets. It was the remedy of the creditor, therefore, whether legal or equitable, and not the remedy of the executor, or the legal or equitable nature of the property, which determined whether assets were legal or equitable. See