Filing Of An Estate Account

We acted for two clients who learned their estranged father had passed away several years ago. They had made their own enquiries with the Probate Registry to find out that their half-brother had taken out Letters of Administration for the estate and had acted as their father’s Administrator. This meant that the intestacy rules would apply however they had not been contacted by their half-brother about the distribution of the estate.

After initial contact to the half-brother failed to open up a dialogue with the half-brother our clients made an application to the Court for the step-brother to file and Estate Account with the Court. This revealed that the step-brother had collected in the assets of their father’s estate but instead of distributing the estate equally between the father’s children including our two clients, he had instead kept all of the inheritance for himself.

This case highlighted the fact the Court will order an Executor or an Administrator to perform their role correctly even if their wrongdoing does not come to light until many years afterwards. An application to the Court is a powerful tool for disappointed beneficiaries who has lost our on their inheritance to find out what they were entitled to so that decisions can then be made about how to recover any lost inheritance.