EQUITABLE ASSETS. Property of a debtor or decedent which cannot be reached by legal process. but which will be applied by equity to the payment of debts. Originally, only property held by the debtor or his personal representative by a legal title was applicable to this purpose, and in the earliest period of our legal history the rights of creditors were confined to the per sonal property so held. Subsequently a testator might, by charging his real estate with the pay ment of his debts, or by directing his executor to sell his lands for that purpose, lender such prop erty liable in equity to the claims of his creditors. This did not have the effect of merging them in his general assets and of subjecting them to legal process; but it made them equitable assets, sub ject to the order of the Court of Chancery. This distinction has now been swept away in England atal in the United States by statute. See DECE
DENT.
The expression 'equitable assets' is now ap plied to any equitable property rights of a debtor which can be reached by creditors only by a proceeding in equity. Most equitable in terests—though there are some important exeep tions—have been subjected by statute to the claims of creditors; but it is manifest that such an interest—as the rights of a beneficiary of a trust, for example—eannot be reached by the ordi nary legal process of an execution or attachment. The creditor has resort, therefore, to a proceed ing in equity known as 'creditor's bill.' In a few jurisdictions a statutory process has been devised for enforcing creditors' rights against either or both forms of property without distinc tion. See ASSETS; EQUITY; EQUITABLE ESTATE.