In a decision handed down in February 2025, the lower court ruled \u2014 based on its interpretation of a deceased man\u2019s will \u2014 that the bequests made it his will didn\u2019t vest until they were actually distributed. As a result, the estate of his son, who died before the proceeds of his father\u2019s estate could be paid out, was disinherited.<\/p>\n
The case involved the estate of Kenneth Douglas Jack, who died in 2018, leaving a will that split the proceeds of his estate between his two sons \u2014 primarily a ranch valued at $1.85 million, which the brothers jointly operated, and where they lived.<\/p>\n
However, before the estate could be distributed, one of the sons died, without a will, and leaving no children.<\/p>\n
The executor of the son\u2019s estate then asked the court for an order that the father\u2019s will vested at the time of his death \u2014\u00a0meaning that the son\u2019s estate would be entitled to its share of the father\u2019s estate, which represented the only significant asset of the son\u2019s estate.<\/p>\n
The court denied that request, ruling that the bequests didn\u2019t vest until they were distributed, based on its interpretation of the father\u2019s will \u2014 in particular, a clause in the will, which stipulated that the estate was to be divided between his children that were \u201cthen alive\u201d.<\/p>\n
The court took that to mean that what mattered was who was alive when the distribution took place, not who was alive when father died. And so, the judge dismissed the application from the son\u2019s executor.<\/p>\n
Now, that decision has been overturned on appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, the chambers judge erred in law by failing to have regard to the entire will,\u201d in interpreting the meaning of the clause that contained the words \u201cthen alive,\u201d the appeal court said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my view, a fair construction of this will is that Kenneth intended to make provision for all his children who survived him,\u201d the appeal court said \u2014 adding that it\u2019s rare for the courts to determine a vesting date other than the death of the testator.<\/p>\n
The process of liquidating an estate, \u201ctakes time, and any delay in liquidating or dividing up an estate does not prevent a gift from vesting at the testator\u2019s death absent clear language,\u201d the appeal court said.<\/p>\n
It allowed the appeal, set aside the lower court\u2019s order, and replaced it with an order stipulating that the estate vested when the father died, and that the son wasn\u2019t divested by his own subsequent death before the proceeds of the estate were distributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a decision handed down in February 2025, the lower court ruled \u2014 based on its interpretation of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[128514,72,128513,6854,176,61,60,6717,2900,174,175,20383],"class_list":{"0":"post-258679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-b-c-supreme-court","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-court-cases","11":"tag-estate-planning","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-law","16":"tag-legal","17":"tag-personal-finance","18":"tag-personalfinance","19":"tag-wills"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}