-without requiring letters of administration
With unanimous support from both sides of the House the Deceased Persons Estates’ Administration (Amendment) Bill was last evening passed by the National Assembly allowing for the payment of up to $750,000 to a claimant without requiring letters of administration as currently required previously.
This applies to money deposited by or owed to the deceased, and includes payments from individuals, organizations, financial institutions, the State, or national insurance bodies.
Mover of the bill Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall, stated that while the previous amendment was “narrow” claimants would now be able to access much needed funds to either bury their loved ones or offset other funeral arrangements. He added that persons would have at one point in time experienced personally or heard from relatives what they would have endured while accessing funds from their deceased.
“We were shortsighted in that (in the previous) amendment we confined the $750, 000 only to bank accounts not recognizing that the deceased person can have money lodged at many places in the country. Based upon public demands from all of our counties, the bar association, the Berbice bar and the ordinary members of the public, I have learnt that this amendment while it is great is too narrow and obviously does not permit the withdrawal of fund from many organizations where our people lodge their money. That includes a credit society a co-op society the national insurance scheme. Even a creditor who owes the deceased persons money this amendment could not apply to any of those sources, While the deceased may be owed the relatives could not have accessed those monies. Even if they had outstanding wages, or as a contract employee none of those places where monies are held for the deceased can be accessed by the amendments which we made. It is against that backdrop we tables this amendment.
Addressing a question from Opposition Member Annette Ferguson about accessing shares held by a deceased person, he explained that while shares themselves are not covered, claimants could theoretically sell up to $750,000 worth of shares to retrieve funds.
“The bill speaks only to money and money while it has a wider definition than cash in law it does not include shares. Let us say a deceased might have had shares during his lifetime in a company. A claimant can theoretically present themselves with a claim not for the shares, because what will you do with the shares? But with an offer to sell at least $750,000 worth of the shares. That is a matter of discretion for the company where the shares are held. If it is a company in demand, the company is doing very well, the shares are very valuable and the shares are very marketable so I presume there should be no difficulty in accessing purchasers for the shares”, he said adding that “This amendment is simply intended to expand the category of places, to as wide as possible, moving it from the narrow focus of a bank account to anywhere else”.
According to the Explanatory Memorandum of the bill “Section 20 of the Deceased Persons Estates’ Administration Act is amended by the substitution of that section to provide that in the absence of letters of administration, a person may pay to a claimant, money deposited by the deceased person with the person or money owed by the person to the deceased person, a sum not exceeding seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars”.
The amendment adds that the “person with whom the money was deposited by the deceased person or by whom money was owed to the deceased person includes but is not limited to any individual, any body of persons corporate or unincorporate, any financial institution or national insurance body, and includes the State”.