The High Court has permitted a solicitor to extract a grant of administration to implement a compromise over the estate of a retired priest, without deciding whether either of two wills was valid.
Ms Justice Baker ruled on 30 July 2018 that Susan Halpenny could obtain a grant limited to carrying out the compromise. The order under section 27(4) of the Succession Act 1965 did not determine whether James Patrick Hannon died testate or intestate, or admit either will to probate.
Mr Hannon died in March 2015. In a 2014 will, he appointed Ms Halpenny as sole executrix and left the residue of his estate to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin for charitable purposes. A 1999 will named two executors and left the residue equally to his sisters.
Doubt arose about Mr Hannon’s capacity to make the 2014 will. In January 2017, the court declined to admit it to proof in common form because it did not have sufficient evidence of his capacity. The capacity dispute was not definitively determined.
Those claiming under the two wills agreed terms for distributing the estate. The estate consisted of bank accounts estimated to have a net value of €317,000. Under the compromise, Ms Halpenny is to pay lawful debts and the pecuniary bequests in both wills, then distribute the estate equally between the people entitled under the two wills.
Justice Baker found that the unresolved, bona fide dispute and the parties’ agreement to settle it amounted to special circumstances. She said the application went beyond mere convenience and that the grant was expedient to put the compromise into effect and avoid the costs of a full probate action.
The judge said section 27(4) allowed such an order even while the validity of a will, or whether a person died testate or intestate, remained unresolved. She said the power should be exercised cautiously, and that special circumstances need not be extraordinary but must make the order worthwhile or appropriate in the circumstances.
The grant is limited to implementing the compromise. The judge stressed that it does not establish that either will is valid. She said it remains theoretically possible that either will could later be admitted to proof in solemn form, although she considered that unlikely because those entitled under both wills were parties to the compromise.