Administration of Estate (33)
HELD:
"Testamentary capacity means legal capacity to make a Will. The law requires that a testator must have a sound disposing mind both at the time of giving instructions and execution.
HELD:
"On the right to inherit to the exclusion of the illegitimate children, children born of father's illicit association during subsistence of marriage or under the Act - The Supreme Court said in Osho v. Phillips (1972) A NLR page 279 thus:-
HELD:
"The position of the law is that where a man who marries under the statute dies intestate, his estate is only inheritable by the wife legally married under the Marriage Ordinance or Marriage Act.
HELD:
"In the present case which is a land dispute, the real parties having regard to the subject matter of the case, Plot 288 Diobu, G.R.A. 11 Port-Harcourt, are Samuel David Eke-Spiff and Major-General Sani Abacha. As Major-General Sani Abacha was dead at the time the action was filed at the trial Court in November 1998, the Administrators/Executors of the Estate of General Sani Abacha (Deceased) was sued as the 3rd Defendant.The question is who are these un-named Administrators/Executors of the Estate of General Sani Abacha? There is no doubt that they must be natural persons who must have applied in their names to the appropriate Probate Registrar of the relevant High Court before the grant of Letters of Administration in their names if any. This is because a person has no locus standi and lacks competence to bring an action in a representative capacity as an Administrator of the Estate of a deceased person until he has been granted the Letters of Administration. Similarly a person who has not applied for nor granted Letters of Administration authorizing him to administer the Estate of a deceased person, cannot defend any action against the Estate of the deceased. In other words, it is the grant of the Letters of Administration that confers the right to sue or be sued in the name of the Estate of a deceased person." THE ADMINISTRTORS/EXECUTORS OF THE ESTATE OF GEN. SANI ABACHA (DECEASED) V. SAMUEL DAVID EKE-SPIFF & ORS.(2009) LPELR-3152(SC) Per MAHMMUD MOHAMMED, J.S.C. (Pp. 51-52, paras. C-B)
FACTS:
HELD:
"Administrators and/or Executors of an Estate where they exist are, beyond argument, natural persons, who can sue and be sued in respect of the Estate they administer, but such natural persons must sue or be sued in their respective names as representing the Estate to sustain the action; it was further submitted while placing reliance in the decisions in SHITIA & ORS v. LIGALI & ORS (1941) 16 NLR 23. I pause to say that I agree with this submission as a correct principle of law. It was not even shown by evidence that letters of Administration or probate was granted to give legal life to the 3rd defendant, it was again submitted while urging that issue No 2 be resolved in favour of the appellant." THE ADMINISTRTORS/EXECUTORS OF THE ESTATE OF GEN. SANI ABACHA (DECEASED) V. SAMUEL DAVID EKE-SPIFF & ORS.(2009) LPELR-3152(SC)Per ADEREMI, J.S.C. (Pp. 31-32, paras. F-B)
FACTS: