ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that English domestic law was reformed in 1925, so that the traditional distinction between realty and personalty became irrelevant for most purposes of succession, the English conflict of laws continues to operate on the basis of separate systems for movable and immovable property. The justification, if one can be found, lies in the idea of effectiveness, that only courts and officials of the situs can effectively deal with immovable property. While it is true that the lex situs of the immovable will have the last word on the succession to it, and may reject the intended beneficiary as lacking the necessary capacity or disallow the intended gift as contrary to its rules against perpetuities and accumulations,139 there is no reason to adopt a divided succession in order to deal with these possible problems. Taken to its logical conclusion, such an approach would preclude an English court from dealing with any case of succession, however strongly connected with England, which involved foreign land. This would, of course, be nonsense. An established exception to the Mocambique rule is where the English court is operating its jurisdiction in the administration of estates. It could be argued that movable property in a foreign country is equally without the control of English courts but this has never prevented them from making decisions about movable property situated abroad. One explanation of this apparent illogicality is that there is a widely accepted view that mobilia sequuntur personam – that movable property is governed by the personal law, at least for purposes of succession – which is shared both by common law and civil law jurisdictions.
