Administration of Estates Amendment Act

The Administration of Estates Amendment Act, 2024 rebuilds the institution that handles deceased and insolvent estates in Zimbabwe. It amends the Administration of Estates Act [Chapter 6:01] and the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe Act [Chapter 22:20]. It does not come into force on gazetting — it starts on a date the President fixes by statutory instrument.

Part II of the principal Act is replaced entirely. The Office of the Master of the High Court continues but becomes a body corporate that can sue and be sued in its own name. It has a Master, a Deputy Master, Additional Masters, an Assistant Master and such further officers as are needed. Those are public offices, but crucially they no longer form part of the Public Service — the Office runs its own staffing.

A new Master's Office Board is created to govern it. The chairperson is appointed by the Minister and must be qualified to be a High Court judge. The Master sits ex officio (with the Deputy Master standing in and able to be instructed how to vote). Up to seven further members are appointed by the Minister, drawn from named fields: deceased and insolvent estates, a registered legal practitioner, accounting or audit, human resources, information technology, an official of the administering Ministry, and a Ministry of Finance nominee. The Board sets policy for the Office, employs and promotes its staff and fixes their conditions of service, handles complaints and grievances, and exercises discipline. It is not subject to direction by anyone except for Auditor-General audit of parliamentary and Consolidated Revenue Fund money, and except for ministerial policy directions under a new section 4D. It reports annually to the Minister, who must lay the report before Parliament.

The Office gets its own money and its own accounts. Its funds are the fees and charges payable to it under the Act, money appropriated by Parliament including Treasury grants for infrastructure and capital projects, donations, grants, bequests and loans accepted by the Board, and anything else accruing to it. The Board must keep proper accounts, submit annual statements to the Minister, and appoint registered public auditors approved by the Minister — with the Auditor-General standing in their place where the Audit Office Act requires it. Surplus funds may be invested as the Board thinks fit, subject to ministerial direction. A Board member, employee or agent who fails without just cause to give an auditor required information or records commits an offence carrying a fine up to level 4, up to three months' imprisonment, or both.

Two substantive changes affect estates directly. Section 26, on competition for the office of executor dative, is replaced: the Master must prefer the surviving spouse, failing whom the next of kin, failing whom a creditor, failing whom a legatee. The new procedure also allows all persons with an interest in the estate to agree by joint affidavit on a different nominee, in which case the judge or the motion court must direct the Master to appoint that person instead. Section 97 is replaced to continue the Guardian's Fund — originally established under an 1833 Cape of Good Hope Ordinance — under the Act, administered by the Master on behalf of the Office, holding money received for people who lack legal capacity to manage their own affairs.

**On completeness.** The extract available for this summary was cut off at the extraction limit at section 6, the amendment to section 105 of the principal Act. The Act's own long title says it also amends the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe Act, and the new Part II refers to a First Schedule (the area of the Master's office of record), a Fourth Schedule (Board members' terms and meeting procedure) and a Fifth Schedule (Board powers) that are not reproduced here. Those, and any further amendments after section 6, must be read in Act 3 of 2024 itself.