Daughter of deceased Meath farmer may sue over will leaving most of €3.5m estate to son

The daughter of a deceased Co Meath farmer has secured court orders clearing the way for a possible legal action over a will leaving the bulk of his €3.55 million estate to his son.

Alma Keogan’s concerns include whether her father, John Keogan, had capacity on the day he died to make an alleged “pretend” will in which his surname was incorrectly spelt Keoghan.

Under that will Mr Keogan, a widowed father of two, of Follistown, Navan, left the bulk of his estate, including most of his farmlands, to his son Thomas Keogan, who owns a Dublin-based electrical contracting business.

Ms Keogan, a teacher from Skyrne, Tara, Co Meath, was left €500,000 and some lands that were previously owned by her mother Breda, who died in 2015.

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Mr Keogan named both his children as executors of his will but Ms Keogan last April renounced her entitlement to extract a grant of probate. With a view to protecting her position in respect of any intended action over the estate, she lodged a caveat in the probate office against the estate last May.

In an affidavit Ms Keogan outlines concerns regarding her father’s will, dated August 20th, 2021, about its validity and whether he had capacity to make it. On that date, she says, her father was in hospital, in poor health, on a lot of medication and was due to be transferred to palliative care.

He had signed a document which spelt his surname incorrectly, giving rise to concerns about his capacity and knowledge and approval of the will, she said.

Vinóg Faughnan SC, with barrister Bonnie Hickey, instructed by solicitor Elaine Byrne, for Ms Keogan, secured orders from the High Court’s Ms Justice Siobhán Stack in recent days permitting an independent solicitor to apply for a limited grant of administration of her father’s estate.

The application was brought to protect Ms Keogan’s position in relation to bringing or defending any proceedings concerning the estate. As proceedings must be issued within two years of the date of death, they would be statute barred if not issued and served by August 18th.

In her affidavit Ms Keogan said her father owned substantial agricultural lands valued at €3.55 million at the date of his death, including lands at Follistown, Mooretown and Morell in Co Meath.

The lands include a modest one-acre site, valued at €100,000, beside the Lisadell Equine Hospital at Follistown that she says her father promised in 2003 he would gift her so she could build a house.

Relying on that promise, which he repeated on other occasions, she had paid €1,200 in 2007/2008 for a water pipe connection to the site. Ms Keogan said she had not put in a planning application because she was single, did not have the money and was not at the stage in life where she would build a house.

Her brother received a different site from their father around 2004 and, later that year, some weeks before he got married, had applied for planning permission for a house there. In breach of her father’s promise to her, he had bequeathed the entire lands at Follistown, including the one-acre site, to her brother, she said.

Another issue arose concerning her entitlement under her mother’s will, she said.

In late 2015 her father had taken out a grant of probate in her mother’s estate, the will admitted to probate was dated August 31st, 2006, and was assumed to be her mother’s last will, she said. Under that her father was the universal legatee of her mother’s estate, including lands owned by her mother at Maperath, Kells.

Ms Keogan said she had last September discovered a copy of a will dated March 12th, 2013 made by her mother. A law firm had confirmed they hold the original of that will that revoked all previous wills of her mother, she said.

Under the 2013 will her mother had bequeathed the lands at Maperath to Ms Keogan. Under the 2006 will her father inherited the lands at Maperath and he left them to Ms Keogan under his 2021 will.

Ms Keogan says the effect of her mother’s 2013 will is that, since her mother’s death, she has been the lawful owner of the Maperath lands and is entitled to the rental income or profits from those lands which, she understood, was some €14,190 in June 2015 to August 2021.