Your assumption that it was to record the goods of the deceased is
incorrect. The inventory recorded the whole personal estate of the
deceased. In English law, personal property means everything except real
property, that is freehold and copyhold land. Accordingly debts due to the
deceased and leases of land for a term of years appear in the inventory.
Relatively modern times, land (real property) automatically passed to the
heir, or the devisee or other person entitled to it. Personal property
passed to the executors or administrators for them to administer and
distribute according to the will or law of intestacy. The inventory lists
property coming into the hands of the executor or administrator.
Changes in English law in the 1880s and 1926 mean that the executors now
also administer real property and the distinction between real and personal
property is now less important. The distinction between the two kinds of
property has been worked out in great detail. It also applies in
determining what is income and what is capital, where property is settled
and some one only has a right to the income. For example growing crops,
being the result of men's labour are treated as chattels, but growing fruit
(such as apples) are considered to be arising naturally and do not become
chattels until picked. In woods managed as coppice, cutting it down every
14 years (or at other intervals) is taking a crop and hence income, but the
stools from which the wood will regrow are considered part of the freehold
and some one entitled to the income only was not entitled to grub them up
and convert the land to another use.
Peter King
----- Original Message -----
From: <Hideaki $B!! (BInui <[log in to unmask]>)>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 08 December 2001 22:05
Subject: debts
> Can anyone tell me the reason why probate inventories record debts due to
the deceased ?
> I think $B!F (BDebts', which the deceased owed to others, ought not to be
put in the inventory, because they are not the goods of the
> deaceased.
>
> Hideaki Inui
>
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