Stepchildren entitled to contents of woman’s will from 1988 that was lost

The stepchildren of a woman whose original will was lost are entitled to its contents, comprising a share in a Dublin house and €360,000 in a bank account, the High Court ruled.

The fact Mary McDermott’s original one-page will, made in 1988, was lost or mislaid did not mean it was revoked and that she died intestate, Ms Justice Marie Baker said. Had that been so, her estate would ultimately go to more remote relatives than her stepchildren, with whom she had a close connection.

Ms McDermott died in November 2013, at a nursing home in Co Kildare. She had lived in Chapelizod, Dublin, with her husband Arthur, who died in 2008. In 1978, in her 50s, she married Arthur, a widower with four children aged 13 to 23. Sarah Kennedy, Mary’s only surviving sibling, had no children and was made a ward of court near the time of Mary’s death.

A dispute arose between two of the stepchildren and a court-appointed committee in which the State’s General Solicitor acted on Ms Kennedy’s behalf.The committee argued because the will could not be located, there was a presumption Ms McDermott destroyed it and died intestate. In that case her entire estate would go to Ms Kennedy.