The High Court has dismissed proceedings by Susan and Orlagh Mulcahy seeking to set aside conveyances of their respective one-eighth shares in a Dublin property to their brother, Kieran Mulcahy. The court also rejected their alternative claim to have a condition added to the deeds.
In a judgment delivered on 6 May 2011, Miss Justice Laffoy found that the sisters had agreed to transfer their interests for IR£33,750 each. The agreement was not conditional on their other sister, Anna, also selling her share, or on the tenants leaving the property. The court found that the consideration was paid indirectly through estate assets that would otherwise have gone to Kieran.
The dispute concerned No. 26 Temple Road, Rathmines, in which the siblings each held an undivided one-eighth share under their late father’s will. The sisters said they understood that their sales would proceed only if all three sisters agreed and vacant possession was obtained so their mother, the executrix, could live there with Kieran and his family. They argued that Kieran’s representations, pressure and the circumstances of the transactions justified setting the deeds aside, or adding a condition to them.
The judge found that the prospect of the executrix moving into the property with Kieran’s family was likely used to persuade the sisters, but it was not a promise or representation of existing fact that the move would happen. Kieran’s family and the executrix never moved into the property, which remained tenanted. The judge also found no evidence that Kieran or the executrix exerted pressure on the sisters to sign.
The court found that Kieran had a relationship of influence over his sisters in relation to the estate, and that he had not advised them to obtain independent legal advice. However, the judge found no substantial benefit to him at their expense: the available valuation evidence did not establish that IR£33,750 was inadequate consideration for each share. The claims based on undue influence and unconscionable or improvident transactions therefore failed.
The judge criticised the failure to keep Susan and Orlagh informed about the estate’s administration and said responsibility for that serious omission rested with Kieran. But she found that this did not establish that he had exploited them in a morally culpable way. She stressed that her judgment was not a finding that the estate had been fully and properly administered. The proceedings were dismissed.