Johanna “Joan” Murphy, who held a number of properties in Co Cork as well as others in Belgium and Germany, left an estate valued at €8.83 million, according to documents released by the Probate Office in Dublin.
Ms Murphy died on September 11th, 2023, in Düsseldorf, Germany, according to the documents which gave her address as Beernaertstraat, Oostende, Belgium. She was formerly of Curragh, Kanturk, Co Cork.
The grant also noted a number of High Court actions connected with a dispute over Ms Murphy’s will and the administration of her estate.
In the High Court in December 2023, it was revealed Ms Murphy had appointed her brother, Anthony Murphy, to manage her Irish properties and business affairs.
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Under a power of attorney, Mr Murphy ran his sister’s 750 acres in Cork, comprising nine separate holdings, of which eight are land holdings farmed and rented out. The ninth is her home property, with 215 acres.
The court also heard that the deceased had appointed Mr Murphy as executor of her estate.
Mr Murphy asked the High Court for orders aimed at preserving the Irish assets of his deceased sister, pending the outcome of a dispute concerning wills.
The application was opposed by counsel for Michelle Murphy, a niece of the deceased. The court was told there was a dispute over whether Ms Murphy’s “first Irish will”, made on January 24th, 2020, was revoked by a German will, dated five days before her death in Dusseldorf, where she was being treated for cancer.
In granting the orders sought by Mr Murphy, Ms Justice Siobhán Stack said it was “basic common sense that a property of this kind needs to be managed while complex legal issues arising from documents signed by the deceased in the last weeks of her life are sorted out”.
