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Query...Wills and the administration process?

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  • Query...Wills and the administration process?

    Wills and probate are not my strongest subject so I would really appreciate some help with this please.

    12 May 1852 a will is proved and 3 executors named.

    14 January 1857 an administration application/summons is made in the Court of Chancery on behalf of a ‘pecuniary legatee’ calling the executors to attend chambers ‘to show cause if they can why an order for the administration of the personal estate should not be granted’. If they didn’t attend then order would be made in their absence ‘as the Judge may think just and expedient’…….In this case the ‘pecuniary legatee’ was the illegitimate daughter, a minor, and the matter was brought to court by her grandfather. Interestingly her mother, who was alive and living with her father, the grandfather, was also a pecuniary legatee but no action was taken for her.

    And then in 1874 the case appears in a newspaper listing for the Rolls Court, Chancery Lane under ‘Petitions; unopposed’

    So, if a will has been proved why would someone be able to apply to administer an estate 5 years later?...Would it mean that the estate had not been dealt with by the original executors or that a beneficiary hadn’t got their expected share and they were making some sort of claim?

    Secondly the ‘petition; unopposed’, seventeen years later?...Would that be some final ‘tidying up’ of the matter in court?

    I have both the will and application/summons but there is no further ‘legal’ documentation to say what actually happened after 1857 just the newspaper notice in 1874.

    Does anyone have any ideas?

    Many thanks in advance for any help.

    Chris
    Avatar....My darling mum, Irene June Robinson nee Pearson 1931-2019.

    'Take nothing on its looks, take everything on evidence. There is no better rule' Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

  • #2
    Chris

    As far as I know, a beneficiary under a Will can apply for Probate if the Executors are taking too long to divvy up. I think a year has to have passed, as that is deemed to be a reasonable amount of time to sort an estate.

    The Court of Probate then asks the Executors why things are taking so long to settle. If there is a good reason, the Court will not grant admin to any one else, but if the Executors can't come up with a good excuse, then the Probate Court does have the power to appoint administrators in their place.

    I would think the final unopposed petition would either be that the matter had been dealt with to the satisfaction of all parties, OR new administrators/executors had been appointed, but as there is no paperwork to support this, then the matter had been dealt with.

    Have you looked for any later paperwork?

    OC

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    • #3
      If the will made provision for regular payments from the estate to one or more of the legatees over a specified period or until they reached a certain age, then the estate could not be finally settled until the end of that period. This could explain why the estate in question was not finally settled until some 17 years or so later.

      Comment


      • #4
        I have several old Wills which took more than ten years to prove.

        One was the admon of my 4 x GGF, a farmer who died without making a Will, shock horror! Admon was granted to his widow, she couldn't be bothered with it all and seven years later, admon was granted to her sons.

        Another from the very early 1700s - silly old goat in his 70s marries a young thing and drops dead. She manages to hang onto everything (no Will, haha) for ten years and repeatedly ignores admon instructions. She had to give in eventually though, when she became pregnant by a local man and her late husband's children applied to the Consistory Court for Admon, which was granted the same day!!!

        OC

        Comment


        • #5
          Have you checked the Death Duty Registers for entries regarding this will? If there is an entry, it may include information about the estate, the beneficiaries and the executors that is not in the will. Also it may have later annotations relating to payments, deaths of legatees, final settlement, etc.

          The Index to the Death Duty Registers is online at FindMyPast (where you can also find a fuller explanation of the Registers in their Knowledge Base), and if the index includes a reference to this will you can order a copy of the Death Duty Register entry from TNA.

          Comment


          • #6
            Sorry for delay in replying, I had typed a reply and tried to post it on Friday night but the site by then had gone down and this is the first opportunity I have had to come back on here.

            I have looked for later paperwork although, I admit, only through NA and A2A but nothing showing. I also did all the searches I could on newspapers online (Times and 19th century) and only found, after 1857, the one mentioning the 1874 'unopposed'

            I did already have the Death Duty Register entry that only notes the one executer (a member of the father’s family) but after doing some reading on the subject have requested an estimate for the full entry from the NA…Hopefully I have found the right set of records in IR26.

            The illegitimate daughter was born in 1848 and the will stated that £1000 be invested and income paid for her upkeep until she attained 21 and then the capital to be paid to her. She would have been 21 in 1869 (and married in 1870) so it looks as if the 1874 report does have something to do with the final winding up of the estate.

            Now what I didn’t mention before was that there was another illegitimate child, same mother, that was born in 1852 and benefited in exactly the same way under the terms of the will and apart from his late baptism in 1858 he disappears of the face of the earth. However the father’s family had a habit of taking in illegitimate sons of the various male members (in fact one of the executors was one, the deceased’s brother’s son!) and I am beginning to wonder if this is what happened to him and they changed his name in someway….He would have been 21 in 1873 so even nearer to the winding up in 1874.

            Thanks to your thoughts and suggestions I may solve not one but two mysteries! So fingers firmly crossed that the register holds more information.

            Many thanks again

            Chris
            Avatar....My darling mum, Irene June Robinson nee Pearson 1931-2019.

            'Take nothing on its looks, take everything on evidence. There is no better rule' Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

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