ADMINISTRATION, the performance or management of affairs, a term specifically used in law for the administration or disposal of the estate of a deceased person. (See WILL OR TESTA MENT.) It is also used generally for "government," and specifi cally for "the Government" or the executive ministry, and in such connections as the administration (administering or tendering) of the sacraments, justice, oaths, medicines, etc.
Upon the death of a person intestate or leaving a will to which no executors are appointed, or when the executors appointed by the will cannot or will not act, the probate division of the High Court is obliged to appoint an administrator who performs the duties of an executor. This is done by the court granting letters of administration to the person entitled. Grants of administration may be either general or limited. A general grant is made where the deceased has died intestate. Formerly, on the death of the owner of realty and personalty intestate, the realty vested in the deceased's heir and the personalty in the court of probate until administrators were appointed. Now, since the rights of heirs as such are abolished by the Administration of Estates Act 1925, all the property, real and personal, vests in the court. Moreover, formerly the right to be appointed administrator was more or less defined. Now by the same act the court is given an absolute discretion as to whom it shall appoint, subject to these limitations : that where there is no special reason to the contrary some person interested in the residuary estate should be appointed, and that where the estate passing on the deceased's death includes land settled otherwise than by his will the trustees of the settlement should be appointed (s.
Not more than four persons are to be appointed adminis trators (Judicature Act 1925, s. 160) ; and separate administrators may be appointed to the real and to the personal estate of the deceased (Administration of Estates Act 1925, s. 13). In the absence of statutory next-of-kin the Crown, on the death intestate of an owner of land and personalty, is now entitled to both as bona vacantia, escheat both to the intermediate lord and to the Crown being abolished. If a creditor claims and obtains a grant he is compelled by the court to enter into a bond with two sureties that he will not prefer his own debt to those of other creditors. The more important cases of grants of special letters of administration are the following : Administration cum testamento annexo, where the deceased has left a will but has appointed no executor, or the executor ap pointed has died or refuses to act. In this case the court will make the grant to the person with the largest beneficial interest.
Administration de bonis non administratis: this occurs in two cases—(a) where the executor dies intestate after probate without having completely administered the estate; (b) where an adminis trator dies. In the first case the principle of administration cum testamento is followed, in the second that of general grants in the selection of the person to whom letters are granted.
Administration durante minore aetate, when the person nomi nated by the will as executor is under age.
Administration pendente lite, where there is a dispute as to the person entitled to probate or a general grant of letters the court appoints an administrator till the question has been decided.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Woerner, American Law of Administration, 3rd Bibliography.-Woerner, American Law of Administration, 3rd edition, 3 volumes, Boston, 1923. Williams, Executors and Adminis trators, nth edition, 2 volumes, London, 1921.
