The Estate of Richard Nunn

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Ross, J.
• Judgment Date: 30 April 1913
• Court: Chancery Division (Ireland)
• Date: 30 April 1913

In the Matter of the Estate of Richard Nunn.

Ross, J.

CASES

DETERMINED 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.

1913.

Land Purchase Acts — Irish Land Act, 1903 (3 Edw. 7, c. 37), section 48 (1) — Estate for sale solvent as to the fee, but insolvent as to subsisting life estate — Bonus.

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

Objection to the final schedule of incumbrances.

The originating application in the matter was lodged on the 15th January, 1906, and the purchase-money amounted to £28,745 cash and £57 Guaranteed 3 per cent. Stock. At the date

of the lodging of the originating application, the charges on the fee of the lands for sale amounted to the sum of £1400.

A receiver had been appointed over the lands in 1887, and since then the rents and profits of the lands had been wholly insufficient to meet the estate outgoings and interest on incumbrances and annual premiums on policies charged on the vendor's life estate in the lands, and for the last twenty-five years no interest had been paid on the last two incumbrances thereon, nor had the vendor, who was tenant for life of the lands, received any rents or profits out of the lands. The bonus amounted to £3323 15s. 1d.

The objector, Edward Westby Nunn, who was an executor of an incumbrancer on the life estate, and had by an order of the King's Bench Division been appointed receiver by way of equitable execution over any bonus coming to the vendor, contended that the proviso to section 48 (1) of the Land Act, 1903, did not apply, and that the bonus was payable to him, and should not be added to the purchase-money.

S. L. Brown, K.C., and Longfield, for the objector:—

Assuming the life estate of the vendor to be insolvent, that does not matter so long as the income of the lands is sufficient, as it is here, to pay the interest on the incumbrances on the fee.

The “estate” that is being sold here is solvent. Section 48 (1) cannot mean that, when the life estate is insolvent by reason of charges put on it by the owner of the life estate, but the fee is solvent, the bonus is not payable to the vendor. It is not the life estate...