The High Court has dismissed a woman’s proceedings seeking to set aside orders that allowed Evelyn McMillen to administer the intestate estates of sisters Adeline and Rita Keppel. The court ruled that the plaintiff had no standing to challenge the appointments because she claimed no interest in either estate and could gain no direct benefit from the orders she sought.
Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy delivered judgment on 26 April 2024. He dismissed the proceedings under the court’s inherent jurisdiction, finding they were bound to fail. He listed them for 10.30am on 10 May 2024 to make final orders.
McMillen obtained High Court orders in 2020 and 2021 granting her liberty to apply for letters of administration for the two estates under section 27(4) of the Succession Act 1965. She later extracted the grants. The court heard that the East Wall property in Dublin, the main known estate asset, was occupied by the plaintiff and another person. McMillen brought separate Circuit Court proceedings for vacant possession, and an order directing the occupants to leave within 14 days was made in November 2023.
The plaintiff alleged that McMillen knew surviving second cousins had priority to administer the estates and had obtained the grants through fraud. The plaintiff’s affidavits said enquiries indicated that relatives with priority were alive, but the judgment records that she provided no supporting documentation from the genealogy organisation she named. The judge found no evidence that McMillen knew she was not entitled to the orders or had acted dishonestly.
The judge said section 27(4) allows the court to grant administration to a person it considers appropriate where special circumstances make that necessary or expedient; the appointee need not be a relative or beneficiary. He noted that a search for next of kin had been advertised years earlier and no one had come forward to take out a grant. Protecting the estate’s main asset from squatters was a special circumstance supporting the applications.
The plaintiff did not claim to be related to the sisters, entitled to administer their estates, or a beneficiary. The judge said any challenge to the grants on priority grounds would have to be brought by someone asserting an entitlement to a grant. He also rejected the argument that the grants themselves deprived the plaintiff of her home: possession was being pursued in separate Circuit Court proceedings, where she had not established a legal entitlement to remain.
The judgment dismissed the proceedings for lack of standing. It did not determine the plaintiff’s allegation of fraud after a trial, and the final orders remained to be made at the listed hearing.