Who may administer a deceased person's estate, where their authority comes from, and the powers and duties that govern everything they do until the estate is wound up.
Nothing in an estate can lawfully happen until someone has authority to act, and almost every administration problem turns on the scope of that authority. The chapter opens with the personal representative's fiduciary role and the different sources of an executor's and an administrator's authority, then moves to who is capable of taking a grant, limits on numbers, and what happens when an executor renounces, has power reserved or passes authority along the chain of representation. It then sets out the order of priority for grants, the position of beneficiaries during administration, and the statutory powers of sale, investment, appropriation, maintenance, advancement and delegation. Finally, it deals with how representatives act together, the self-dealing rule, standards of care and remuneration, the steps and protections surrounding distribution and assents, and the grounds on which the court may remove a representative.
