House passes bill to widen administration of estates left by persons with no will
The National Assembly last Thursday approved a bill to improve management of the estates of deceased persons valued at up to $750,000 where no will has been left.
The Deceased Persons Estates’ Administration (Amendment) Bill, which was tabled by Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall, was passed in the absence of the main opposition from the sitting at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
The bill seeks to increase the value of estates for which the registrar may appoint an administrator in the absence of a legal will from the deceased.
The explanatory memorandum of the amendment bill states that Clause 2 of the Bill amends Section 19 of the Principal Act to increase the value of estates for which the registrar may summarily appoint an administrator, those being intestate estates or testate estates where no executor has been appointed or an executor is unable to or unwilling to act, from $1,000 to $750,000.”
Clause 4 of the bill amends section 25(1) (b) of the Principal
Act to increase the value of estates that are administered by the Public Trustee without the grant of letters of administration from $1,000 to $750,000.
Once enacted, the bill would also permit a bank manager to pay a claimant from the savings of a deceased person a sum of not more than $750,000 in the absence of letters of administration.
The current Act restricts the amount to $1,000. The sum may only be withdrawn where the savings of the deceased does not exceed $750,000.
“Clause 3 of the Bill substitutes for section 20, a new section 20 which will now provide that in the absence of letters of administration, a bank manger may pay to a claimant, from a deceased person’s savings bank account, a sum not exceeding $750,000. This sum may only be withdrawn where the sum of the money in a deceased person’s savings account does not exceed $750,000. A claim can be made in writing by the spouse or heir of the deceased person indicating that the person died intestate and that the value of their estate does not exceed 750,000,” the explanatory memorandum added.
Presently, under the Act, a bank may only pay out money under the specified circumstances where the money in the account and the value of the entire estate does not exceed $250, the explanatory memorandum noted, while adding that the new Section 20 “will now provide that a bank shall not be liable in respect of any claim by any person in connection with a payment made under the section”.
During his presentation, Nandlall said that the amendment sought to alleviate the hardships faced by the population and allows for the dispensation of grants of probate as well as letters of administration.
`Far reaching’
He said the bill was “small” in form but has “far reaching” and “very positive” ramifications and implications for the widest cross sections of society.
Nandlall explained that with the current Act, society is faced with a process that is “very expensive”.
“One has to retain a lawyer, one has to go and compile all the assets, one has to have them valued by a certified valuation officer, one has to go to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and have all the assets examined in an inventory and then one also has to compile the liabilities and then based upon the net value of the estate, one has to pay estate duties and then make the application for the grant to which I am referring to either probate or letters of administration to the High Court then a Judge has to examine that application and then the document or the application is granted,” Nandlall explained.
“Mr Speaker, the process that I have just outlined is a very expensive one and costs an average, at a minimum, two to three hundred thousand dollars. That is the lowest I have gone and that is the smallest of estates. It can run into millions depending on the value of the estate because the lawyers’ fees vary in accordance in the size of the estate,” he said.
According to the AG, the process can also be very time consuming.
“So Mr Speaker, this bill and the accompanying amendments…present a great reprieve against the hardships that are imposed on persons, especially the poorer classes of people in our society, who may have great financial constraints and difficulties when death raps on the door,” Nandlall said.
Minister of Public Service Sonia Parag, Member of Parliament Seepaul Narine and Minister of Education Priya Manickchand also threw their support behind the bill.
In her brief presentation, Parag observed, “Many times small estates are left inaccessible to the heirs and many times the process is so long…persons die waiting to access something that they are entitled to get.”
She added that it is something that should have been looked at in the last five years. “It was something that was necessary. Something that would have caused ease to so many persons,” Parag noted.
Meanwhile, Narine deemed the amendments proposed as “timely” while arguing that it constitutes another demonstration of the government bringing relief to the lives of the “ordinary Guyanese people.”
“Often times Mr Speaker, especially for poorer Guyanese, this represents another period of anguish for the families of the deceased as they would seek to bring closure in the life of their loved one,” he said.
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Guyana yesterday declared its support for the launch of an initiative by Canada which is aimed at stopping countries from detaining foreign citizens for use as diplomatic leverage.
Ottawa and Washington have accused China, Russia and North Korea among others of engaging in arbitrary detention of foreign citizens.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugh Todd issued a statement in support of Canada’s initiative.
He noted that small states like Guyana remain most vulnerable if the practice of arbitrary arrest, detention and sentencing prevails.
Observers note that this issue has resonance with the detention recently by Venezuela of two Guyanese fishing boats and their crews. The boats and crew were subsequently released.
Todd said: “The Government of Guyana strongly condemns politically motivated arbitrary arrest, detention and sentencing of foreign nationals and embraces the position that every person, regardless of who they are and where they are, is entitled to the protection of their basic human rights and fundamental freedoms as established in international law. Every State has the responsibility to safeguard these rights, not just for their citizens but for foreign nationals within their jurisdiction”.
He added that the detention of foreign nationals as a political tool is troubling and contravenes customary international law, due process and many provisions of international treaties.
“Foreign citizens should never be used as political pawns; therefore, the Government of Guyana stands resolutely for human, civil and political rights and encourages all States to end the practice of arbitrary arrest, detention or sentencing to exercise leverage or blackmail over foreign governments and further encourages the United Nations to promote and pursue the Declaration against Arbitrary Detention in State-To-State Relations within the United Nations Framework” Todd declared.
He said that Guyana is continuously increasing efforts to improve the treatment of persons detained within the confines of our municipal laws in a humane manner.
Reuters yesterday said that Canada had launched a 58-nation initiative to stop countries from detaining foreign citizens for diplomatic leverage.
Foreign ministers signed a non-binding declaration to denounce what Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau called unacceptable behaviour.
“Taking people from their families and using them as bargaining chips is both illegal and immoral,” he said by phone, calling the effort the first of its kind.
Other signatories include Japan, Britain, Australia and virtually all members of the 27-nation European Union.
The declaration does not target any nation, Reuters said. Gar-neau stated that it was designed to increase diplomatic pressure on countries that detain foreigners as well as others who might want to do so.
But, according to Reuters, a Canadian official said the initiative had been sparked by concern over arrests of foreigners by China, Iran, Russia and North Korea.
Even before the declaration was formally released, the Global Times, a Chinese state-backed newspaper, cited unnam-ed experts as saying the initiative was “an aggressive and ill-considered attack designed to provoke China”.
Reuters noted that Ottawa is locked in a dispute with Beijing, which detained two Canadians in 2018 after Vancouver police picked up a senior Huawei Tech-nologies Co Ltd executive on a U.S. warrant. Canada denounces what it calls “hostage diplomacy” while China insists the two cases are not linked.
Among the signatories is the United States. Last week the State Department called for the release of the two Canadians and rejected China’s “use of coercion as a political tool”.
The Canadian official said the declaration could help put pressure on Beijing.
“We want to make them feel a little uncomfortable. We want them to know that a lot of countries think this practice is unacceptable and hopefully over time it does contribute to a change in behavior,” said the official, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.
Last December the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee called on the government to declare Iran’s “arbitrary detention of foreign nationals” as hostage-taking, Reuters said.