Roughly a third of Irish estates begin with the same discovery: there is no will. What follows is not a free-for-all but a fixed statutory map — the Succession Act’s intestacy rules, distributing by relationship categories with total indifference to promises, contributions, estrangements or need. The rigidity is the point, and the rigidity is the problem: the default map creates its own disputes, and they are this page.
The Map, Briefly
Spouse or civil partner and no children: everything. Spouse and children: two-thirds / one-third, the children’s third shared equally (a predeceased child’s share passing to their children). No spouse: children equally; then parents; then siblings; then outward through the statutory hierarchy. Administration follows entitlement — those with the greatest interest have first claim to the grant, in defined priority. Marital and non-marital children share alike. And two absences define the terrain: cohabitants take nothing under the fixed rules (the 2010 Act’s redress scheme, on its short strict clock, is the correction), and there is no fairness override — no section 117 equivalent adjusts intestate shares for merit or need.
Time limits in estate disputes are among the strictest in Irish law — a section 117 claim must be brought within six months of the grant issuing, and the court cannot extend it. Other claims run on their own clocks, some short, some with extensions. Never assume you are out of time, and never assume you have time: take advice promptly. Nothing on this page is legal advice for your situation.
Where the Fights Actually Happen
- Who administers: equal-entitlement deadlocks (three siblings, one grant), the race to extract, and the administrator who then behaves like an owner — the same machinery that governs executors governs administrators;
- Who is in the class: the unknown child who comes forward, parentage and proof, and recalculated shares — commoner than families believe;
- What is in the estate: the joint accounts and lifetime transfers that emptied it — the presumption and resulting-trust analyses matter doubly where fixed shares divide whatever remains;
- The doors around the map: cohabitant redress on its urgent clock; estoppel where promises were relied on (the farm cases run on intestacy too); and the will that turns out to exist — citations flush out documents people sit on.
No Will - and No Agreement Either?
The map, your place on it, and the doors around it - established in one confidential call, with the urgent clocks (cohabitants especially) checked first.
Call 01 5827148