The High Court has admitted the 2018 will and 2023 codicil of Finglas man Daniel Doran to probate, resolving a point about beneficiaries witnessing a later testamentary document.
Ms Justice Siobhán Stack delivered judgment on 21 November 2025 after previously granting the application in the non-contentious probate list.
Doran made his will on 11 January 2018. It named his wife as sole executrix and beneficiary. If she died before him, their daughter Mary Barton was to act as executrix and the estate was to be divided equally among their five children.
In June 2023, while Doran’s wife was seriously ill in hospice care, the couple executed a joint codicil concerning a cottage and land in County Leitrim. It provided that the property would pass to their son Patrick Doran. The codicil was witnessed by Mary Barton and her brother Martin, both beneficiaries under the earlier will.
That raised the question of whether their gifts under the will were void because they had witnessed the codicil.
The High Court held they were not. The judge found that the gifts to Barton and Martin arose under the 2018 will, which neither had witnessed. Their role in witnessing the 2023 codicil did not invalidate those gifts. The codicil did not benefit them; instead, by directing the Leitrim property to Patrick, it reduced the share they would otherwise receive from the estate.
The court also rejected the idea that the codicil should be treated as republishing the entire earlier will in a way that would invalidate those gifts.
Ms Justice Stack therefore ordered that both documents be admitted to probate.
The judgment also noted the practical value of homemade wills or codicils in urgent end-of-life circumstances, while warning that joint testamentary documents can create legal difficulties and that professional drafting remains preferable where possible.