Taking Out an Irish Grant Through an Attorney When the Executor Lives Abroad

Most executors abroad take out the Irish grant themselves, remotely, and never need the procedure described here. But a minority of files reach a point where the person entitled to the grant cannot practically act: they are elderly and frail, they live somewhere that makes swearing Irish papers difficult, or there are several of them in several countries and coordinating signatures would take months. Irish practice has an answer. The person entitled can appoint an attorney, and the Probate Office can issue a grant to that attorney for the use and benefit of the person who appointed them. This article explains how that works, what the power of attorney must contain, and what the attorney can and cannot do.

The Grant to an Attorney

Where a person entitled to a grant of representation lives outside Ireland, the Probate Office can make a grant to their lawfully appointed attorney. The attorney swears the papers, takes out the grant and administers the Irish estate. The grant is made for the use and benefit of the person who appointed the attorney, and it is normally limited: it continues until that person applies for and obtains a grant themselves, or until the administration is complete. Because the attorney is not the executor named in the will, the grant that issues is a grant of administration with will annexed rather than a grant of probate; where there is no will it is a grant of administration intestate. In practice the difference matters little to the institutions that have to act on it.

When the Route Is Used

Four situations account for most attorney grants on cross-border files. The first is incapacity short of legal incapacity: an executor in her eighties in a nursing home in Birmingham who is perfectly able to decide but not able to visit a notary and manage correspondence. The second is distance combined with difficulty: an executor in a country where notarisation for Irish use is slow or unfamiliar. The third is numbers: three or four executors or next of kin on three continents, where a single attorney in Ireland can take out one grant for all of them. The fourth is where the estate needs active management in Ireland, such as a house to be cleared, secured and sold, and a person on the ground is better placed than a person on the far side of the world.

It is not a shortcut around the rules for non-residents. If the person entitled lives abroad and a non-resident beneficiary is to receive €20,000 or more, an Irish solicitor must still be appointed before the grant issues, and the Probate Office’s own requirements for solicitor applications still apply; see do I need an Irish solicitor for probate? What the attorney route solves is the mechanics of who swears, signs and acts.

The Power of Attorney

The document is a specific power of attorney for the purpose of taking out the Irish grant and administering the Irish estate, in a form the Probate Office accepts. It names the donor (the person entitled), the attorney, and the deceased, and it is signed by the donor, witnessed, and depending on where it is signed may need to be notarised. We draft it; the donor signs it where they live and returns it with their identification. An enduring or lasting power of attorney from the donor’s home country, or a general business power, is not a substitute and will be rejected for this purpose. The power is lodged with the application and is referred to in the grant.

What the Attorney Can and Cannot Do

Under the grant the attorney can do what any personal representative can do in Ireland: collect the assets, close accounts, transfer or sell shares, sell property through an Irish conveyance, pay the estate’s Irish liabilities and distribute the Irish estate. They act for the benefit of the person who appointed them, owe that person an account, and cannot keep anything for themselves beyond any fee agreed in advance where the attorney is a professional. The grant does not give the attorney any authority outside Ireland, and it does not displace the executor’s authority at home. If the executor later wants to take over, they can apply for their own grant and the attorney’s grant ceases.

The Alternative: One Applies, Others Reserve

Where the difficulty is several executors rather than one who cannot act, the attorney route is not the only answer. Irish procedure allows one executor to apply for the grant with power reserved to the others, who can come in later if needed. If one of the four is in a position to swear and act, that is often simpler than four powers of attorney. Which fits depends on the family, the assets and where everyone is, and it is one of the first things we settle on a file with multiple executors. The practical steps either way are in the non-resident executor of an Irish estate.