The High Court declined to make an order on whether the personal representative of Catherine Stanbridge could deduct more than €122,000 in legal costs from her estate before distributing it. Justice Laffoy said the question concerned estate administration and was outside the court’s jurisdiction in the proceedings before her.
The Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland had sued Paula, Austin, Lorraine and Kevin Stanbridge. In an earlier judgment, the court found that disclaimers executed by Austin and Lorraine Stanbridge were void under section 10 of the Irish Statute of Fraudulent Conveyances 1634. It said Paula Stanbridge, acting as personal representative of the deceased, had to administer the estate on that basis.
The court had previously made costs orders in the substantive proceedings and in a separate motion brought by the Bureau. Austin and Lorraine were ordered to pay the Bureau’s costs of the substantive proceedings, while no costs order was made for or against Paula or Kevin in that part of the case. For the separate motion, the Bureau was ordered to pay each defendant’s costs. Justice Laffoy said those were the only costs orders in the dispute between the parties and the court’s jurisdiction over those costs had been exhausted.
The present application, made on Paula Stanbridge’s behalf on 19 January 2011, sought permission to pay her legal costs from the estate before distributing the seven-ninth shares due to Austin and Lorraine. The Bureau had a claim against those shares. The bills for solicitors’ and counsel’s fees exceeded €122,000.
The personal representative’s lawyers had argued that those costs should be deducted before the relevant shares were calculated for distribution. Her counsel relied on section 45(1) of the Succession Act 1965, which provides for estate assets to meet funeral, testamentary and administration expenses, debts and liabilities.
Justice Laffoy did not decide whether the legal costs qualify as administration expenses under that section. She said the Bureau would have to form a view on that question in connection with its claim against distributions to Austin and Lorraine. If the costs are administration expenses, the personal representative may pay them from the estate before distributing it to all beneficiaries.
The judgment noted that Paula Stanbridge had been sued as administrator and that she had a point in saying she could have faced actions by beneficiaries had she not defended the proceedings. The court made no direction or order on the application.