Succession Act 1981

Every person making or permitting to be made any payment or disposition in good faith under a grant shall be indemnified and protected in so doing, notwithstanding any defect or circumstance whatsoever affecting the validity of the grant.

All payments and dispositions made in good faith to the personal representative named in a grant before the making or the revocation thereof shall be a valid discharge to the person making the same; and a personal representative who has acted under a grant which is subsequently revoked may retain and reimburse himself or herself in respect of payments and dispositions made by him or her which the person to whom a grant is afterwards made might properly have made.

Without prejudice to any order of the court made before the commencement of this Act all dispositions of any interest in property made to a purchaser in good faith by a person to whom a grant has been made are valid notwithstanding any subsequent revocation thereof.

A personal representative who in good faith and without negligence has sought and obtained a grant is not liable for any legacy paid or asset distributed in good faith and without negligence in reliance on the grant notwithstanding any subsequent revocation thereof.

The personal representative under any grant made subsequent to a grant which has been revoked may recover any legacy paid or asset distributed (or the value thereof) in reliance on the revoked grant from the person to whom the legacy or asset was paid or distributed, being a legacy or asset which is not payable or distributable to that person under the subsequent grant, but if that person has received the payment or distribution in good faith and has so altered that person’s position in reliance on the propriety of the payment or distribution that, in the opinion of the court, it would be inequitable to order the repayment of the legacy or the return of the asset or its value, the court may make such order as it considers to be just in all the circumstances.

If, while any legal proceeding is pending in any court by or against a personal representative to whom a grant has been made, the grant is revoked, that court may order that the proceeding be continued by or against the new personal representative in like manner as if the same had been originally commenced by or against the personal representative, but subject to such conditions and variations (if any) as the court directs.

For the purposes of this section revocation includes any partial revocation by way of a variation of the grant or otherwise.