The High Court has given Thomas McWilliams liberty to apply for Letters of Administration with Will Annexed de bonis non in the estate of his grandfather, George McWilliams, who died in 1927. The order is intended to enable the completion of the estate’s administration and the perfection of land titles. It does not itself transfer ownership of land to McWilliams.
In a judgment delivered on 18 December 2024, Ms Justice Stack considered whether Maeve Moran, the executrix of the late Rory Lavelle, had become executor of George McWilliams’s estate through the chain of representation. William Lavelle, the original executor, had obtained probate in 1928. The chain was said to have passed through his executor, Rory Lavelle, who died in 2024 and nominated Moran as executrix.
The judge held that section 19(1) of the Succession Act 1965 abolished the chain of representation where the sole or last surviving executor dies after the Act commenced. She concluded that the provision applied even though the original executor had died before the Act commenced. Accordingly, Moran was not executor of George McWilliams’s estate, and no legal personal representative remained to give the assent needed to complete the land titles.
The application concerned registered lands in Folio 26237, County Galway, and unregistered lands at Derrygimlagh. The judgment says McWilliams obtained an appointment over parts of those lands under a 1979 indenture from his mother, Winifred Frances McWilliams. The judge was satisfied on the material before her that he was entitled to be registered as owner of part of the registered lands and beneficially entitled to part of the unregistered lands.
The court had not been given enough material to determine whether all the lands in the estate had formed part of Charlotte Elizabeth McWilliams’s estate, or whether other people might be entitled to parts of them. The judge noted that anyone able to establish an entitlement to land outside McWilliams’s interest could require him to transfer it. She considered that a grant covering the entire unadministered estate would also allow other entitled people, if any, to perfect their titles.
The judgment’s final page ends mid-sentence after explaining that a grant in respect of the entire unadministered estate could assist people entitled to other lands. The source supplied does not include any text after that passage, including any formal order or further terms.