The Estate of Letitia Leslie Foster

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Wylie, J.
• Judgment Date: 11 July 1912
• Court: Chancery Division (Ireland)
• Date: 11 July 1912

In the Matter of the Estate of Letitia Leslie Foster.

Wylie, J.

CASES

DETERMINITD BY

THE CHANCERY DIVISION

OF

THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND.

AND BY

THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION,

AND ON APPEAL THEREFROM IN

THE COURT OF APPEAL.

1912.

Land Purchase Acts — Irish Land Act, 1903 (3 Edw. 7, c. 37), s. 48 (1) — Estate insolvent as to income — Vendor entitled to annuity charged thereon — Bonus — How applicable.

Where an estate sold under the Land Purchase Acts was insolvent as to income, but the vendor was entitled to an annuity charged thereon, which, at the time of sale, was being regularly paid in its proper priority:—

Held, that the estate was not so incumbered that the vendor was not entitled to receive for her own use any part of the rents or profits thereof, within the meaning of the proviso to s. 48 (1) of the Irish Land Act, 1903, and that the bonus should be paid to the vendor.

Question arising on allocation, as to whether the bonus should be added to the purchase-money or paid to the vendor.

The facts on which the question arose, as stated in the judgment of Wylie, J., were as follows:—

By deed dated the 5th September, 1860, an annuity of £100 was granted to Letitia Leslie Foster, charged upon the lands sold herein and other lands, with power of distress, and, in case of non-payment of any gale for thirty days, to enter into and receive the rents and profits for her own use until the annuity should be satisfied. Subsequently a number of charges were created at different times for considerable sums. Two of these were vested in trustees for the said Letitia Leslie Foster, who afterwards, in 1875, purchased the estate subject to said annuity and charges. She thereupon by her agent entered into receipt of the rents and profits, and thereout was paid the annuity of £100 until about 1904, when she sold part of the lands to her tenants, in the matter of the Estate E.C. 517. In that matter the annuity of £100 was apportioned, £30 being placed on the lands sold therein. That sum was redeemed, and the redemption price and all arrears due in respect of the annuity were paid to her in that matter. A bonus of £414 had been declared therein, and had been retained in Court pending the decision of this question. The unredeemed balance of the annuity was paid to the said Letitia Leslie Foster, till her death in 1908, but in the meantime she had sold other portions of the lands in the matter of the Estate E.O. 4782, in which a further bonus of £1,252 8s. 9d...