The High Court has ruled that two sons’ applications for provision from their late father’s estate were brought within the statutory time limit, because a limited grant of administration did not start the six-month period. In a separate ruling, it held that S. 1’s claims over company shares were time-barred, but declined to decide whether a claim concerning an alleged guarantee was out of time.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Laffoy on 23 August 2013, addressed preliminary issues in two related estate proceedings. The court considered whether the sons’ applications under section 117 of the Succession Act 1965 were filed within six months of the first taking out of representation, and whether separate claims by S. 1 were barred under section 9 of the Civil Liability Act 1961.
A creditor bank had obtained a limited grant of administration in October 2010, authorising a solicitor to defend proceedings the bank intended to bring against the estate. The court found that grant did not establish the terms of the will or the extent of the estate, and did not give the administrator authority to defend a section 117 application. The will was later admitted to probate in March 2011. Both sons’ applications were issued within six months of that probate grant, so the court held it had jurisdiction to hear them. The judgment decides only that time-limit issue; it does not determine whether either son is entitled to provision.
S. 1’s claims concerning shares in F. Co. Limited arose from his allegation that his father promised in 2000 to transfer the shareholding to him if he worked in the family business. The court treated the alleged failure to honour that promise as a cause of action that existed before the father’s death in July 2008 and survived against the estate. Because proceedings began in August 2011, more than two years after the death, the court held the shareholding claims were not maintainable.
A separate claim concerned an alleged assurance that the estate would honour a guarantee relating to S. 1’s borrowing to buy land. The court said the pleaded case was unclear and confusing, and there was no agreed statement of facts on that issue. It declined to give a definitive ruling on whether that claim was time-barred, leaving it for the parties to resolve.