The High Court has ordered Eric and Mary Rennick to pay 75% of the applicants’ taxed costs in proceedings concerning the estate of Thomas Henry Reburn of Dernascrobe, Carrickmacross, County Monaghan.
Mr Reburn died intestate in March 2005. His first cousins Michael Rennick and Marie Barrett later obtained letters of administration and brought proceedings concerning the identity of his next of kin, a joint Irish Nationwide Building Society account and the defendants’ dealings with estate property.
The estate was relatively modest. Its main assets were a house and about 24 acres of farmland valued at €230,000 and €43,130.73 held in a joint account in the names of the deceased and Eric and Mary Rennick. The net estate was recorded at €270,733.24.
Before proceedings were issued, Mary Rennick had also asserted a claim against the estate for €67,560 for work and services, although most of that claim was later dropped.
By consent in April 2012, the parties agreed that reasonable steps had been taken to identify the next of kin, that the money in the joint account belonged to the estate and that the defendants would provide an account of their dealings with estate property.
The remaining dispute concerned who should pay the legal costs.
Ms Justice Laffoy rejected an argument that probate authorities allowing unsuccessful parties to recover costs from an estate should govern the case. Mr Reburn had died intestate and the dispute did not concern the validity of a will.
Instead, the judge treated the joint-account issue as essentially hostile litigation between parties. Because the defendants conceded that the joint account belonged to the estate, that concession was the relevant “event” for costs purposes.
The court ordered the estate to bear the costs of identifying the next of kin and 25% of the applicants’ remaining taxed costs. The defendants were ordered to pay the other 75%. The adequacy of their eventual accounting for estate property remained unresolved.