Duty where estate object of dispute
45.Section 22 creates a specific duty where the sole or main reason for a judicial factor’s appointment to a factory estate was that the factory estate was not being properly managed as a result of disagreement between the persons responsible for managing it as to how to do so. In these circumstances, the judicial factor must encourage the responsible persons to agree how the estate is to be managed. Subsection (3) authorises the judicial factor to act as a mediator or arbitrator, or to appoint a mediator or arbitrator, if the judicial factor considers one of these methods of dispute resolution to be the appropriate way to facilitate agreement. Subsection (4) places the judicial factor under a further duty, where agreement between the relevant parties is not reached, to prepare a scheme, which the judicial factor considers fair, for either the ongoing management or the distribution of the estate – subsection (5) clarifies that this scheme might require the division and sale of the estate, or a part of the estate.
