Does an English personal representative have a duty to distribute foreign assets to the beneficiaries? Does this depend on the deceased’s domicile and whether the assets are movable or immovable?
Surely every person who has read this post has at sometime came across this situation. I have managed to ‘dodge’ the same usually from the outset in the terms of the retainer to advise that we will not be dealing with any foreign assets and a foreign lawyer will need to be instructed. However, I do recollect reading somewhere… unfortunately many years ago, that there is no duty to administer assets abroad.
Where a foreign asset is difficult to administer can the executors be compelled to administer assuming they have intermeddled?
I had a look at Dicey, Morris and Collins and it suggests that an English PR has a duty to collect and get in assets situated in England and Wales, but whether he has a duty to collect and get in assets abroad is less well defined. They then go on to say he may have a duty if the assets are needed to pay debts. The section makes no reference to whether the English PR has a duty to collect and get in the assets so that he can distribute them. However, perhaps the absence of reference to that indicates there is no duty to collect and get in foreign assets to distribute them. That seems odd though when foreign assets might pass under English succession law.
It was Harman J in Re Fitzpatrick who said that an English PR may have a duty to collect and get in foreign assets if they are needed to pay debts. He then went on to say that where chattels are specifically bequeathed the PRs should simply assent the foreign chattels to the beneficiaries rather than going to collect them from the foreign country. To me it seems that that case was solely trying to get at the fact that a PR should not wastefully spend money collecting a foreign asset to bring it to England and to deliver it to the beneficiary when they could instead simply assent the chattel. The case does not appear to support the conclusion that English PRs have no responsibility for distributing foreign assets. If anything, the case suggests they do have a duty to assent the specifically bequeathed asset to the beneficiary, which is a form of distribution.