The High Court has dismissed an appeal by M.B. against a Circuit Court decision refusing to add M.B.’s sister as a co-plaintiff in proceedings under section 117 of the Succession Act 1965. The court also refused the application for relief.
The case concerns claims that their late father failed to make proper provision for his children. The judgment says the father’s will left his property to extended family members, excluding his children. Those underlying claims were not decided in this ruling.
The defendant, P.D., is the sole proving executor of the estate. A grant of representation was extracted on or about 5 May 2021. M.B.’s proceedings began on 1 June 2021, within the statutory six-month period. The proposed co-plaintiff did not start proceedings within that period.
Her lawyers had relied on correspondence in which P.D. said he intended to renounce the grant. They understood that renunciation would suspend the deadline. P.D. did not renounce and remained executor. The judge found that the lawyers’ understanding of the law was their own and was not induced by P.D.’s representations.
Justice Siobhan Phelan held that section 117(6) requires proceedings to be instituted within six months of the first taking out of representation. She rejected the argument that renouncing a grant suspends that period, finding no basis for it in the statute or in the earlier decision relied on by the proposed co-plaintiff. That earlier case concerned a limited grant, whereas this estate had a full grant.
The judge also considered whether P.D. could be estopped from relying on the deadline. She held that the time limit is a jurisdictional requirement and that jurisdiction cannot be conferred on the court by estoppel. Because the proposed co-plaintiff’s claim was outside the statutory period, adding her to M.B.’s proceedings would be futile. The court therefore dismissed the appeal and refused the application for relief; it did not determine the merits of either sibling’s claim about provision from the estate.