The High Court has refused an application to preserve an Irish will that left a holiday house in Shillelagh, Co Wicklow, to a neighbour and friend of the deceased.
The joint applicants sought a declaration that the Irish will remained valid despite a later UK will, and permission for the executor named in the Irish will to seek probate in Ireland. All beneficiaries under the UK will consented to the application. Ms Justice Butler ruled on 1 July 2022 that the applicants had not discharged the heavy burden of showing that the later will’s revocation clause did not revoke the earlier one.
The deceased, Eileen Rose Turnham Jones, made the Irish will on 1 September 2011. It dealt solely with her Irish dwelling house and appointed the second applicant as executor. The later UK will, executed on 25 October 2011, revoked “all earlier wills and testamentary dispositions” and defined the deceased’s estate as all her property wherever situated. It distributed the residuary estate among 17 beneficiaries.
The judge said the later will’s terms appeared to revoke the Irish will and include the Wicklow property. The legal question was whether evidence about the circumstances of the wills showed that the deceased did not know, approve of or understand the effect of the revocation clause. The applicants bore the burden of proving that, and the judge described it as a very heavy one.
The evidence was limited. Neither solicitor who prepared the wills provided evidence about the deceased’s instructions or capacity. A letter from a solicitor at the UK firm said the later will was intended to update and replace a 2003 will, and that the deceased had not referred to her Irish property in her instructions. The judge considered the letter but found it did not establish whether the Irish will replaced an earlier Irish will or what the deceased intended when she signed the UK will.
The judgment also noted that the death certificate listed severe vascular dementia as a cause of death, three years after the wills were made. No medical evidence about her condition when she gave instructions was presented. The judge said the first applicant’s belief that her aunt intended the wills to operate separately was not supported by enough detail to establish that intention.
The court refused both requested reliefs. It did not declare the Irish will unrevoked or grant the Irish executor liberty to seek probate. The judge said the applicants might be right about the deceased’s intentions, but the evidence was insufficient to satisfy the required burden.