Administration of Estates in UK Law

As I have said, the better view is that the period under section 22(a) of the 1980 Act (in cases to which that section applies) will not begin to run until the administrator has paid the costs, funeral and testamentary and administration expenses, debts and other liabilities properly payable out of the assets in his hands, and provided for the payment of any pecuniary legacies.

In addressing that question – described by Mr Justice Neuberger as the "second question" – the court must, indeed, weigh the risks of re-instating the solicitor in his (or her) practice against the potentially catastrophic consequences to the solicitor (and the inconvenience, and perhaps real harm, to his or her existing clients) if the intervention continues.

The "legal ownership" of the trust property is in the trustee, but he holds it not for his own benefit but for the benefit of the cestui que trustent or beneficiaries. Upon the creation of a trust in the strict sense as it was developed by equity the full ownership in the trust property was split into two constituent elements, which became vested in different persons: the "legal ownership" in the trustee, what came to be called the "beneficial ownership" in the cestui que trust.

All that was intended to be conveyed by the use of the expression "trust property" and "trust" in these and subsequent cases (of which the most recent is Pritchard v. M.H. Builders Ltd. [1969] 1 W.L.R. 409) was that the effect of the statute was to give to the property of a company in liquidation that essential characteristic which distinguished trust property from other property, viz., that it could not be used or disposed of by the legal owner for his own benefit, but must be used or disposed of for the benefit of other persons.

In English law the rights of a testamentary legatee in the unadministered estate of a testator are well settled: see Lord Sudeley v. Attorney General [1897] A.C. 11 and Commissioner of Stamp Duties (Queensland) v. Livingston [1965] A.C. 694. A legatee's right is to have the estate duly administered by the personal representatives in accordance with law. But during the period of administration the legatee has no legal or equitable interest in the assets comprised in the estate.

She will simply continue to live in this house and provide a home there for the children until it is sold, and if and when it is sold she will have to get another house, At any rate, her two younger children are likely to be living with her in this house or elsewhere for a long time, and her two elder children are still dependent on her, and the Court cannot see that there is really any sum to be deducted for the value of the house at all.