Interpretation

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires“administration” means, with reference to the real and personal estate of a deceased person, letters of administration, whether general or limited, or with the will annexed or otherwise; “administrator” means a person to whom administration is “committee” includes a person appointed by the court to exercise the powers of a committee under section 15 (2) of the Unsoundness of Mind Act; CAP. 122. “conveyance” includes a lease, assent, disclaimer, release and every other assurance of property or of an interest therein by any instrument, except a will, and “convey” has a corresponding meaning; 8 Administration of Estates Act “court” means the Supreme Court; CAP. 122. “defective” includes every person affected by section 19 of the Unsoundness of Mind Act and for whose benefit a receiver has been appointed; “disposition” includes a conveyance, devise, bequest and an appointment of property contained in a will, and “dispose of” has a corresponding meaning; “entailed interest” includes an estate tail (taking effect as an equitable interest) created before the commencement of this Act; “equitable interests” means all interests and charges in or over land or in the proceeds of sale thereof, other than legal estates; “income” includes rents and profits; “intestate” includes a person who leaves a will but dies intestate as to some beneficial interest in his real or personal estate; “land” includes land of any tenure, and mines and minerals, whether or not held apart from the surface, buildings or parts of buildings (whether the division is horizontal, vertical or made in any other way) and other corporeal hereditaments and a rent or other incorporeal hereditaments, and an easement, right, privilege or benefit in, over or derived from land and an estate or interest in land not being an undivided share in land; “legal estates” means the estates, charges and interests in or over land, subsisting or created at law, which are by statute authorized to subsist or to be created at law; “legal mortgage” means a charge created by way of legal mortgage; “mortgage” means any charge or lien on any property for securing money or money’s worth; Administration of Estates Act 9 “pecuniary legacy” includes an annuity, a general legacy, a demonstrative legacy so far as it is not discharged out of the designated property and any other general direction by a testator for the payment of money, including all estate duty from which any devise, bequest or payment is made to take effect; “person of unsound mind” includes a person of unsound mind whether so found or not, and in relation to a person of unsound mind not so found; “personal chattels” means carriages, horses, stable, furniture and effects not used for business purposes, motor cars and accessories, not used for business purposes, garden effects, domestic animals, plate, plated articles, linen, china, glass, books, pictures, prints, furniture, jewellery, articles of household or personal use or ornament, musical and scientific instruments and apparatus, wines, liquors and consumable stores, but does not include any chattels used at the death of the intestate for business purposes nor money or securities for “personal property” means all forms of property, movable or immovable, corporeal or incorporeal, other than freehold estates and interests in land; “personal representative” means the executor, original or by representation, or administrator for the time being of a deceased person, and as regards any liability for the payment of estate duty, includes any person who takes possession of or intermeddles with the property of a deceased person without the authority of the personal representatives or the court, and “executor” includes a person deemed to be appointed executor as respects settled land; “possession” includes the receipt of rents and profits or the right to receive the same, if any; “prescribed” means prescribed by probate rules or other rules of court; “probate” means the probate of a will; 10 Administration of Estates Act “probate rules” means rules made under section 165 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act; “property” includes a thing in action and any interest in real or personal property; “purchaser” includes a lessee or other person who in good faith acquires an interest in property for valuable consideration, also an intending purchaser; “real estate”, except as provided in Part VI, means real estate (including chattels real) which by virtue of Part III devolves on the personal representative of a deceased person; “rent” includes a rent service or a rent charge, or other rent, toll, duty or annual or periodical payment in money or money’s worth, issuing out of or charged upon land, but does not include mortgage interest; “representation” means the probate of a will and administration, and “taking out representation” refers to the obtaining of the probate of a will or of the grant of administration; “securities” includes stocks, funds or shares; 1925, c. 18. “tenant for life” includes a person (not being a statutory owner) who has the power of a tenant for life under the Settled Land Act and also (where the context requires) one of two or more persons who together constitute the tenant for life, or have the powers of a tenant for life; “term of years absolute” means a term of years, taking effect either in possession or in reversion, with or without impeachment for waste, whether at a rent or not and whether subject or not to another legal estate, and whether certain or liable to determination by notice, re-entry, operation of law or by a provision for cesser or redemption or in any other event (other than the dropping of a life, or the determination of a determinable life interest), but does not include any term of Administration of Estates Act 11 years determinable with life or lives or with the cesser of a determinable life nor, if created the commencement of this Act, a term of years which is not expressed to take effect in possession within twenty- one years after the creation thereof where required by this Act to take effect within that period, and in this definition to the expression “terms of years” includes a term for less than a year, or for a year or years and a fraction of a year or from year to year; “trust for sale”, in relation to land, means an immediate binding trust for sale, whether or not exercisable at the request or with the consent of any person, and with or without a power at discretion to postpone the sale, and “power to postpone a sale” means power to postpone in the exercise of a discretion; “valuable consideration” includes marriage, but does not include a nominal consideration in money; “will” includes codicil. (2) References to a child or issue living at the death of any person include a child or issue en ventre sa mere at the death. (3) References to the estate of a deceased person include property over which the deceased exercises a general power of appointment, including the statutory power to dispose of entailed interests, by his will.