Trusts, Estates & Tax: what makes a winning team - Part 7

Hannah is currently working on an estate in which this firm’s trust corporation Freeths Trustees Limited (‘FTL’) was appointed the Independent Administrator (‘IA’) by the Court pursuant to section 50 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985. The deceased was a widower and was survived by a son, a daughter and a grandson (his son’s son). The estate comprises a farm consisting of a farmhouse and the surrounding farmland. Part of the farm was gifted by the deceased to his son, during the deceased’s lifetime.

A 2015 Will left the farm to the deceased’s grandson. However, in 2017, a new Will was signed that excluded the deceased’s grandson and left the farmhouse and farmland to his son and the residue to his son and daughter in equal shares. Following the deceased’s death in 2019, the deceased’s son and daughter, as the executors named in the 2017 Will, extracted a Grant of Probate.

Subsequently, the deceased’s grandson pursued a proprietary estoppel claim against the estate. Proprietary estoppel is a legal remedy for an unkept promise that has been relied upon by another party to their detriment. Here, the grandson claimed that his grandfather had promised to leave the farm to him in his Will. The claim was determined by the Court following a trial on the basis that the balance of the farm (the part not previously gifted and still within the estate) should be transferred to the grandson in satisfaction of the claim. Tragically, the deceased’s grandson died following the court’s determination, and his interests are now represented by the administrator of his estate.

As part of its role in administering the estate, the IA is tasked with transferring the land to the estate of the deceased’s grandson in accordance with the Court Order. One of the issues with the transfer is that various rights must be granted to the deceased’s son over the transferred land, such as rights of way and rights to run services. Furthermore, the son and grandson’s executor are in dispute about the extent of the land to be transferred. Hannah is therefore working closely with the Private Client Dispute Resolution team and the Agricultural Property team, in order to resolve the issues.  

Where an IA has been appointed by the Court, the Court Order itself does not give the IA the authority to enter into contracts, agreements, sign undertakings or generally sign papers in the administration of the estate. Rather, the IA’s authority to act derives from the issue of a Grant of Representation to the deceased’s estate. The IA cannot, therefore, deal with the assets of the estate until the issue of the Grant. This can be problematic as it is usually many months (and in some cases more than a year) before the Grant is issued by the Probate Registry, due in part to long delays at the Probate Registry.

Where, however, a full Grant of Probate has already been issued to the executors of an estate, and an IA is subsequently appointed by way of Court Order in their place, as in this case, it is possible to expedite the process of obtaining the new Grant of Representation in their name, whereby the application is fast-tracked. If a full Grant of Probate has not been issued previously and there are pressing matters to be dealt with in the estate administration before the IA is in a position to apply for a full Grant, an application for an emergency grant can be made.

The appointment of an IA can be the key to breaking a deadlock between executors and/or beneficiaries, where a dispute has arisen and communication has broken down. The IA must act in a neutral capacity and take objective steps to preserve the assets of the estate and administer it in a timely fashion and in the interests of the beneficiaries.

Hannah is part of an Independent Administrator team at Freeths of both non-contentious and contentious experts who have the experience and knowledge to unlock the trickiest of estate administrations in order to reach a resolution. Please contact Hannah with any queries.