Get to Know Your Administrator-General

1. When someone dies and leaves things like money, cars and land, this is called their estate. In Jamaica, we call it 'dead lef'. Anyone can go to the Administrator-General to report a death and ask for help with sharing the 'dead lef'. You do not have to be part of the family.

2. The Administrator-General must help when someone who has a child under 18 years old dies without leaving a Will. They ask the court to allow them to:

☑ Find and collect all the 'dead lef'

☑ Check if the person owed any money

☑ Use the 'dead lef' to pay off their bills or debts

☑ Share what is left with the right family members

3. The Administrator-General protects the share of 'dead lef' that belongs to the child until they are 18 years old. If the child gets a house, they will take care of it and rent it for them. They keep the rent money safe by putting it into special accounts that earn interest. Some of the money can be used to pay school fees, buy school books, clothing and supplies that the child needs. Everything else will be given to them when they are adults.

4. Even if there are no children under 18 years old, you must tell the Administrator-General when someone dies without a Will. They may not take the case because there are only adults, but they must give you a paper to take to a lawyer who can sort out the 'dead lef'. Sometimes, they take on special cases like if an adult is sick or disabled.

5. The Administrator-General may be able to help you get money to pay for a funeral, if the person who died left any savings in the bank. They can give you a letter for the bank to pay the money to the funeral home before the day of the funeral.

6. When the Administrator-General is put in charge of someone's estate, if the car you are driving is owned by the person who died and the papers are about to expire, you may get help to transfer the car to your name. This depends on certain things like if the car is for your personal use only, there is no money owing on the car and there are no children in the picture.

7. The Administrator-General helps when there is a Will but the person who was put in charge of sorting out the 'dead lef' either died, cannot be found or does not want to take on that job. They can step in and get the papers from the court to do what the Will says.

When the person who died leaves a Will that says the Administrator-General is to sort out the 'dead lef', they can go to court and get the papers to carry out their wishes.

8. When someone claims the right to land that went to the government because the owner died without a Will and had no legal family members, the Administrator-General will take their papers for the government's lawyers decide if they can get the 'dead lef'.

9. When the court specially calls on the Administrator-General, they must take on these special cases.

10. The Administrator-General makes it easy for you to get the help you need. They do not give you a lot of paper work. You only need to fill out the "Particulars" form. Do not worry if you cannot answer all the questions on the form. Just fill in what you know. If there is someone else who can give more information, they can also get a form to fill out. The Administrator-General does not turn away anyone with information.