Definition
Ready money refers to funds that are immediately available for payment without conversion, encumbrance, or delay. In its most common legal context, the phrase appears in testamentary instruments — wills and bequests — where it describes a class of property the testator intends to pass to a beneficiary. What qualifies as "ready money" is a question of construction: courts look at whether the funds are presently accessible to the owner in liquid form, not merely convertible into cash through some further act.
In the law of wills, a bequest of "ready money" has been construed to include cash on deposit at a bank, whether held in a current (checking) account or in a deposit account withdrawable on notice. The key criterion is accessibility — the money need not be physically in hand, but it must be presently claimable without requiring the sale of an asset or collection of a debt that is uncertain or contested.
Outside the testamentary context, "ready money" appears in commercial and contract law to mean payment in immediately available funds at the time of a transaction, as opposed to payment on credit, by installment, or through a negotiable instrument subject to future honor.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Money held ready for payment, or actually paid, at the time of a transaction.
The gap between common and legal usage here is narrow in concept but significant in application. Ordinary usage treats "ready money" as simply meaning cash-on-hand or payment made at once. The legal construction question — particularly in the testamentary context — goes further: courts must determine which instruments, accounts, and obligations qualify as sufficiently "ready" to pass under a bequest. What feels intuitively like cash may not qualify under judicial construction, and what does not feel like cash (such as a bank deposit withdrawable only on notice) may well qualify.
Common Confusion
Researchers should not conflate "ready money" with "cash" in the strict sense of physical currency. English chancery decisions established that bank balances — including those not immediately withdrawable but accessible after giving notice — fall within a bequest of ready money. Conversely, stock dividends not yet received, proceeds in the hands of a sales agent, and similar items that require an additional act of collection or realization have been excluded. The distinction turns on whether the owner has a present, unqualified right to the funds, not on whether the funds take the form of coin or bills.
Why It Matters in Research
The term appears most heavily in English equity and chancery sources and in American cases construing wills from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Researchers working with testamentary disputes in that period will encounter "ready money" as a term of art with a developed body of construction doctrine — one that cannot be read by simply applying the ordinary meaning of the words.
Two navigational traps are worth flagging. First, the case law on what qualifies as ready money under a bequest developed almost entirely in English courts. American decisions largely follow the English construction but may not cite the underlying chancery authority. Researchers looking for American doctrine on point may need to trace back through English equity reports to understand the reasoning that American courts absorbed.
Second, in real estate and commercial contexts, "ready money" or "ready, willing, and able buyer" language intersects with broker commission disputes. A buyer who can pay in immediately available funds is treated differently from one whose ability to close depends on financing contingencies. This usage is distinct from the testamentary construction doctrine but shares the underlying concept of present, unencumbered availability of funds.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the most direct historical treatment. Bouvier's synthesis of the English chancery decisions draws a workable line: cash at a banker's — whether in a current account or a deposit subject to notice — passes under a bequest of ready money. Unreceived dividends on stock do not. Money held by a sales-master (a court-appointed agent managing proceeds of a sale) does not. A debt owed to the testator has been held to pass, though this is the outermost edge of the doctrine and represents a minority or contested position.
What Bouvier's does not address is any American statutory development on the point, or how modern financial instruments — money market accounts, certificates of deposit, electronic transfers — would be classified under the historical framework. Researchers applying this doctrine to modern instruments will find no direct historical authority and must reason by analogy from the core principle of present accessibility.
Jurisdictional Note
The construction doctrine for testamentary bequests of "ready money" originated in English chancery and was adopted in American equity courts. No uniform American statutory definition exists. Modern will-drafting practice has largely displaced the phrase in favor of specific account designations or residuary clauses, so live disputes under this language are now uncommon outside probate matters involving older instruments.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
realestate_54: Broker Commission Disputes — Procuring Cause, Ready Willing and Able Buyer, and MLS Cooperation (The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia)
property_56: Mortgages — Purchase Money Mortgages and PMSIs in Real Property (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia)