The High Court has found it necessary and expedient to appoint an independent person to administer the estate of Mary Ann, otherwise Maureen, Horan, after the named executor failed to take out a grant of probate and concerns arose about his management of company and estate matters.
In a judgment delivered on 24 January 2020, Mr Justice Denis McDonald said the circumstances amounted to special circumstances under section 27(4) of the Succession Act 1965. The application was made before any grant of probate had issued to Dermot Horan, the executor named in his mother’s 2006 will.
The judge cited a significant delay in applying for probate, a lack of satisfactory explanation and unanswered correspondence from the applicant’s solicitors. He also relied on evidence that Westwood International Transport Ltd had been struck off after annual returns were not filed while Dermot Horan was its only director capable of giving instructions, and that unpaid rates led to a judgment against the company.
A further concern was the failure to provide bank details for rent from the estate’s Fonthill industrial property. The tenant returned €69,600 in rent in January 2019. The judge also noted that the executor had not adequately addressed questions about insurance, rent collection and tax relating to the property. He considered the executor’s account of a boundary dispute involving a physical altercation, and a disagreement over whether the will postponed distributions for ten years.
The court considered the evidence on affidavit and said a plenary hearing was unnecessary. It rejected the executor’s argument that the stricter test for removing an executor after probate had issued applied here. The judge said the estate’s beneficiaries had lost trust and confidence in one another, and concluded that the applicant should not administer the estate either. A wholly independent person was appropriate.
The ruling concerns administration of the estate. The judge expressly made no decision on whether the executor could be challenged in his separate role as trustee under the will. Nor did the court appoint an administrator immediately: it postponed making a formal order to allow the parties to propose a suitable person and provide evidence of that person’s suitability.