VALENTINE-MUNN and PUBLIC TRUSTEE OF QUEENSLAND, MAXTED and PUBLIC TRUSTEE OF QUEENSLAND

[2011] QDC 147

[2011] QDC 147

DISTRICT COURT

CIVIL JURISDICTION

JUDGE ROBIN QC

No 80 of 2011

SANDRA JOAN VALENTINE-MUNN

Applicant

and

PUBLIC TRUSTEE OF QUEENSLAND

No 81 of 2011

ROBYN ANNE MAXTED

and

PUBLIC TRUSTEE OF QUEENSLAND

Respondent

Applicant

Respondent

BRISBANE

..DATE 12/07/2011

ORDER

CATCHWORDS
Succession Act 1981, s 41
Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999, r 98

Sanction of compromise of applications for further provision under a will where one of affected beneficiaries is a minor
HIS HONOUR:  The Court makes orders in each of these matters in terms of the initialled draft which makes provision for the applicant in the modest sum of $25,000 out of the modest estate of Harry Bruce Hirsch who died at the age of 87 leaving three children - a son and two daughters - who are the applicants.  They are women in their sixties.  Not a lot is known about their circumstances but the executor the Public Trustee of Queensland and the beneficiaries who take under the will have reached the view that the resolution proposed is a suitable one.

If costs are ignored, it results in each of the applicants taking about a 10 per cent share of the estate.

It is true that applications in respect of smaller estates tend to be discouraged but it can't be said, without inquiry, that the applications are necessarily unmeritorious.

The Court is asked to give its imprimatur or sanction under Rule 98 because the proposed order will impact adversely on the shares of the beneficiaries who include a boy yet to reach adulthood.  There is parental and grandparental endorsement of the proposition which is supported by the advice of counsel engaged by the Public Trustee that the outcome proposed should be seen as in the child's interest.  It leads to an early resolution of not one but two separate proceedings, and I note in this regard that each applicant will pay her costs from the provision made.

Even if applications of this kind fail, there is a real risk that the costs of them will be ordered paid out of the estate, a risk which all concerned, including the Court, are and should be cognisant.

There's a description of what the applicants receive as "going away money," which it may be from the point of view of those on the respondent's side, but it may well be otherwise from the applicants’ standpoint.  The material simply doesn't offer any information about reasons the testator might've had favouring one branch of his family over others.

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