The High Court has refused an application to keep assets from an Irish ancillary administration separate from the principal administration of an estate in England, and directed the Irish administrator to comply with requests to transfer assets to discharge debts owed to English creditors.
The ruling concerns the estate of J.J., who died domiciled in England in May 2017. He had made separate wills for property in Ireland and England. The Irish estate was estimated at about €1.14 million, while the English estate appeared to be insolvent. The court said J.J. appeared to have few, if any, creditors in Ireland.
The application was brought by the Irish administrator, with support from J.J.’s separated wife and eldest daughter. The wife was the residuary legatee under the Irish will. The daughter has separate proceedings seeking proper provision from her father’s estate under section 117 of the Succession Act 1965; that claim was not decided in this judgment. The English administrator opposed the application and sought transfer of the Irish assets to the English administration so creditors could claim against the estate as a whole.
The applicants relied on the English decision in Re Lorillard, where a court had refused to transfer assets from an ancillary administration because creditors’ claims would have been time-barred under the law of that jurisdiction. The High Court accepted that it had discretion over the transfer, but declined to follow that outcome. It said the ordinary course was for an Irish ancillary administrator, after local expenses and debts were addressed, to hand the remaining assets to the foreign principal administrator.
The judgment noted that the parties did not dispute submissions that the relevant limitation period was two years in Ireland and six years in England. The court considered that refusing transfer could leave English creditors unable to claim against the Irish assets under the shorter Irish period, while beneficiaries might receive assets ahead of creditors. It referred to section 45(1) of the 1965 Act, under which a deceased’s estate is available first to pay debts and liabilities.
The court also distinguished Re Lorillard, observing that the beneficiaries in that case lived in the country of the ancillary administration, whereas the wife and daughter here lived in England. It said there was no evidence that J.J. had made the separate wills or acquired Irish property to prefer his family over creditors.
The court refused the order that would have allowed the Irish estate to be administered under the Irish will separately. It directed the Irish administrator to comply with any request to transfer assets to the English administrator to discharge English creditor debts. The judgment did not resolve the daughter’s section 117 claim or set out a final distribution. The parties were asked to seek agreement on outstanding matters; if needed, the case was to be listed for mention one week after judgment at 10.30am.