High Court finds misconduct after years of delay and removes executors from multimillion-pound estate
Two executors have been removed from office and ordered to pay costs after the High Court found that prolonged delays and a series of failures in the administration of an estate amounted to misconduct and “seriously unreasonable behaviour”.
The ruling followed proceedings concerning the estate of Mary Organ, who died in a care home in December 2017. She was unmarried and had no children. The case was heard at Bristol’s Business and Property Courts before HHJ Paul Matthews.
Anne Elizabeth Helme and Daniel Jones had been appointed executors under Ms Organ’s will. The will provided for pecuniary legacies totalling £200,000, including a gift of £100,000 to Jones, alongside legacies of property and land to former friends and colleagues. The total value of the estate at the date of death was £3,686,904.
The court heard that the defendants became aware of Ms Organ’s death in January 2018 but did not inform the claimants of their interest in the estate. The claimants only became aware of their entitlement in August 2020, after being told by another beneficiary. Following that disclosure, the claimants and their solicitors contacted the executors to press for progress in administering the estate.
In December last year, the claimants applied to the court for relief. They sought the appointment of Stone King Trust Corporation Limited to replace the defendants as personal representatives and as trustees of the will. They also applied for interim relief, and the court granted an injunction preventing the defendants from disposing of or diminishing the value of any estate assets pending determination of the claim or further order.
The claimants raised multiple complaints about the defendants’ conduct. These included failing to notify beneficiaries of their interest for 18 months, delays in administration, the sale of farm machinery belonging to the estate, fees charged to the estate at a professional rate for watering cattle, conflicts of interest arising from solicitors in the same firm acting on opposite sides of a transaction, failure to place properties on the market when instructed, and accelerating the sale of estate properties after an injunction application had been lodged.
HHJ Matthews found there was substance in all but one of the complaints. He said he was not in a position to determine the allegation relating to a lack of oversight of works carried out on a farm forming part of the estate.
The judge concluded that the defendants had demonstrated a poor understanding of the need for executors to avoid even potential conflicts of interest and had taken far too long to administer the estate. By the time of the hearing earlier this month, the defendants accepted that they should be replaced, leaving the court to determine costs and indemnity issues.
HHJ Matthews ruled that the defendants’ conduct of the proceedings was “out of the norm” and ordered them to pay the claimants’ costs on the indemnity basis. He held that their behaviour amounted to misconduct and breaches of duty, and that they were not entitled to an indemnity out of the estate for the costs of the litigation.