Untitled

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5708, 16 July 1879, Page 2

In the “ Gazette” issued on the 10th of the present month, there is published a despatch from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, dated 28th February, 1879, notifying what Acts for the session of 1878 had received her Majesty’s allowance or disallowance. Public Acts to the number of forty-eight have passed the ordeal, but one important Act is excepted, namely, that relating to the administration of the estates of deceased persons. In reference to this the Secretary of State points out the following defects ;—By section 4 of the Bill ‘ 1 real “ estate” is to include “ chattel interests,” and by section 10, subsections 4 and 5, the executor or administrator is to hold the “real estate” of an intestate dying before the Act comes into force (unless he leaves a wife or issue), upon trust for his heir-at-law. The effect of this is to transfer the beneficial interest in chattels real in these cases from the next of kin to the heir-at-law, which was evidently not intended. Section 10 omits to provide for the trust of real estate of a person who dies before the Act comes into operation leaving a will. This would bo remedied by leaving out the words “ after this Act “ comes into operation” in subsection 1. In section 23 the word “lands” is used twice where “real estate” is evidently intended. In section 35, the use of the expression ‘ ‘ next of kin ” leaves it doubtful whether the nearest of kin, according to the rules of the civil law, or the persons who under the English Statute of Distribution would have taken the mother’s personal estate if she had died intestate at the time of the bastard’s death, are intended. In section 36 the provision for succession to the estate of a female intestate leaving no husband or issue was presumably intended to apply, and should apply, only to the case of an illegitimate issue, as there can be no reason for excluding from succession the father, the brothers and sisters, and their issue, and the paternal next of kin in any other case. We trust the Legislature will act on the advice of the Secretary of State, and re enact the Bill in an amended form this session, as the provision in the Real Estate Descent Act, 1874, under which at present the property of intestates is dealt with, restricting the Act to male persons, is unjust and absurd.