Judge to decide on deceased builder’s €3.4m estate

A judge has been asked to decide whether a builder revoked previous wills relating to part of his €3.4 million estate, which includes the farm where the Derrynaflan Chalice was discovered.

William (Billy) Courtney died in October 2013, age 84, leaving assets in Britain and Ireland.

He had amassed these assets after emigrating from Co Kerry to England in 1953, where he enjoyed a successful career in the building industry, the High Court heard.

He married Patricia Courtney and died without children, but he had a large number of nieces and nephews.

He had assests worth €1.6 million in the UK, the bulk of which was generated by his family home at Narcissus Road, London.

His Irish assets, worth about €1.8 million,were made up of property in Co Dublin, Co Kerry and Co Tipperary, including the farm where the Derrynaflan Chalice was found in 1980.

He made a will in a solicitor’s office in England in 2006 which was limited to his UK assets, the bulk of which he left to his wife.

He made another will in 2007 with his solicitors in Killarney, Co Kerry, dealing with his Irish assets, which were to be put into a trust for his wife and his sister Mary.

On their deaths, the trust would come into being for the benefit of certain nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews.

His Kerry solicitor, Michael Larkin, was the executor of that will.

Over the next four years, he made four amendments, or codicils, to the Irish will, relating to how the Irish assets were to be distributed.

In 2013, shortly before his death, he asked his wife to obtain a pre-printed “home-made” will, the court heard.

In that, he again stated that the bulk of his UK assets should go to his wife.

Because this pre-printed will contained a standard revocation of all previous wills, the court was now being asked to decide if that was the actual intention of the deceased, counsel for Mr Larkin said.

Its effect would be that he would have died intestate with regard to the Irish property, counsel said.

Intention

The court was being asked to decide whether Mr Courtney intended to revoke the previous wills, as the presumption in law was that this would be the case once such a clause is included, counsel said.

Declan Whittle BL, for a nephew of the deceased, Michael Courtney, argued it would be risible or preposterous to suggest that, after four years of dealing with his Irish estate through codicils, the deceased would want it to go into intestacy.

Ross Gorman BL, for Ms Courtney, said she had sworn an affidavit this month stating she was of the opinion her husband did not intend to revoke the wills and that his Irish assets should effectively remain with his relatives.

Ms Justice Marie Baker has reserved her decision.