The High Court directed an executor to provide further evidence about the administration of an estate, including the vesting of a Celbridge property, after finding the material before it insufficient to establish whether the administration had been completed.
In a preliminary ruling delivered on 30 April 2012, Miss Justice Laffoy said the plaintiff’s motion to re-enter the proceedings was “misconceived”. But she was not satisfied that the defendant, as personal representative of the estate, had shown that he had properly dealt with the property or completed the administration.
The judge ordered the defendant to file an affidavit by 18 May 2012, exhibiting relevant documents. These were to include any written agreement made before the proceedings were adjourned in April 2008, the deed of assent referred to in the defendant’s affidavit, and the final account of the administration. The plaintiff was permitted to file a response by 8 June, limited to the vesting of the property, completion of the estate administration and compliance with any such agreement. The matter was to be relisted on 11 June 2012.
The proceedings began in 2007 after the death of Robert Henry Sharpe senior. His will left his estate to his son, the plaintiff, and daughter, Barbara Meyer, in equal shares. Because the defendant, who was the daughter’s husband, witnessed the will, the bequest to her was void under section 82 of the Succession Act 1965. The plaintiff’s original claim acknowledged that she could nonetheless be entitled to a share through a partial intestacy.
The original summons sought revocation of the grant of probate issued to the defendant and appointment of a solicitor to administer the estate. Alternatively, it sought an order requiring the defendant to assent to the vesting of the property in the beneficiaries according to their entitlements and to complete the administration. The proceedings were adjourned generally with liberty to re-enter in April 2008. The judge said she assumed the parties had agreed on a basis for administering the estate, but there was no evidence before her to confirm the agreement or its terms.
The defendant’s 2012 affidavit said the plaintiff had signed a deed of assent and that the matters raised had been finalised. The judge noted that the deed had not been exhibited. The plaintiff disputed the defendant’s account but did not address the assent directly.
The ruling did not decide whether the estate had been fully administered or determine the plaintiff’s entitlement to costs. The judge also said the High Court could not interfere with separate Circuit Court proceedings concerning partition and sale of the property, and that issues about the estate of the parties’ mother were outside the present proceedings.