SCOTTISH COMPANIES

307
assumption of new trustees, effect is given in the register to
such changes on production to the company of an extract
from the Register of Deaths, the Minute of Resignation, or
the Deed of Assumption, as the case may be.

Where buyers are described in a transfer as office-bearers,
e.g. president, secretary, and treasurer, it is usual to add the
words ‘and their successors in office’ after the words ‘do
hereby bargain, sell, assign, and transfer to the said trans-
ferees.” When that is done, all that is usually required,
before substituting in the register the name of any new
office-bearer for that of an office-bearer who may have died
or demitted office, is the production of a certified extract
from the minutes of meeting of the company, institution, or
society at which such new appointment is made, in some
cases supported by a statutory declaration by a responsible
person conversant with the facts.

Until a recent date married women were under certain legal
disabilities which necessitated the consents of husbands being
obtained to transfers and other deeds granted by them. This
resulted mainly from what was known as the husband's
‘right of administration’ over the wife's property.

The Married Women’s Property (Scotland) Act, 1920,
which came into force on 23rd December, 1920, has brought
about an important change in the law. It is now enacted
that after that date the property of a married woman is not
to be subject to the right of administration of her husband,
which right is by the Act wholly abolished, and a married
woman is, with regard to her estate, to have the same powers
of disposal as if she were unmarried. It is also provided
that any deed or writing executed by her with reference to
her heritable estate in Scotland, or to her moveable (i.e.
personal) estate, is to be as valid and effectual as if executed
by her with consent of her husband according to the former
law and practice. It is therefore now unnecessary for a
husband to execute a transfer of shares or stock belonging
to his wife, whether the wife’s name appears as transferor
or as transferee. The Act also provides that a married
woman shall be capable of entering into contracts, of in-
curring obligations and of suing and being sued, as if she
were not married, and that her husband shall not be liable
in respect of any contract she may enter into or obligation
she may incur on her own behalf. This would cover the
case of a wife granting a Letter of Indemnity to a company
in respect of a lost share certificate and the issue of a new
one in lieu thereof.

Married
Women.