The High Court has rejected an attempt to have a dispute over part of a Westmeath family estate dismissed on the basis that the claim was brought too late.
Frank Doyle is seeking to establish that the phrase “my old house and yard” in the 2005 will of his mother, Bridget Doyle, included a farmyard. His sisters Anne Doyle and Bridget Goodwin Doyle, the executrices of the estate, contend that “yard” referred instead to a small paved area behind the old house.
Bridget Doyle died on 19 August 2016. Probate was granted to the defendants on 8 October 2019, and Frank Doyle issued proceedings on 1 February 2025.
The defendants asked the High Court to decide as a preliminary issue that the proceedings were barred by the six-year limitation period in section 45 of the Statute of Limitations 1957. They argued that time began running when their mother died.
In a judgment delivered on 29 April, Ms Justice Siobhán Stack rejected that interpretation. She held that even where real property is specifically left to a beneficiary, the beneficiary does not automatically acquire a right to receive it on the date of death. Executors must first have sufficient opportunity to administer the estate, establish its liabilities and determine whether property may be required to meet expenses or claims.
The judge said that in this estate a potential claim under section 117 of the Succession Act could have been brought for six months after probate was granted. On the evidence before the court, she considered that the relevant right to receive the property could not be treated as having accrued before that period expired.
Doyle commenced proceedings less than six years after both the grant of probate and the end of that six-month period. The court therefore held that it could not be said his claim was statute-barred.
The ruling does not decide whether the disputed word “yard” means the farmyard or the paved area. That question remains for determination if the case proceeds to a full hearing.