“FORCED INTO MARRIAGE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1065, 1 September 1930, Page 1

“FORCED INTO MARRIAGE”

Will Causes Complications

FOUR SISTERS IN QUANDARY

Seeking Relief Through Court

“THE simplest way of settling this litigation would be for all I the daughters to get married,” observed Mr. Justice Heraman, m the Supreme Court today, during the hearing of an action m which four sisters sought interpretation o:F the wills ol then grandmother and mother, whose joint estates were conservatively valued at £BO,OOO.

The proceedings were brought on im originating summons by Kathleen, Eileen, Constance and Una Foley against the trustees of the estate of their grandmother, Johanna O’Sullivan. and the trustees of their mother's estate. The Court was asked to decide whether the trust under the will of Johanna O'Sullivan for the accumulation of surplus income from the estate, until the expiration of one year after the marriage of each of the granddaughters was valid, and whether as next-of-kin, the applicants were entitled to it. Mr. Leary appeared for the applicants, and Mr. Prendergast for the trustees, and Mr. Sellars for the unborn grandchildren. Mr. Leary stated that the grandmother, Mrs. Johanna O'Sullivan, left an estate valued at £38,000, and the applicants’ mother left an estate of £24,000. The true value of the joint estates was much greater, and on a modest estimate it would probably be £BO,OOO. The income from the two estates last year amounted to £3,600 in round figures. “SMALL ALLOWANCES” The wills were so phrased that the four girls received very small allowances, tile ultimate destination of the income being the applicants’ unborn children. None of the applicants was named, and had been brought up to a life of comparative ease and luxury. The girls were now receiving £4 veekly each from the joint estates. The present application was dictated ly the fact that the whole of the accumulated income and the capital would go to the four girls’ unborn children, who would receive at least an estate ot

£ SO.OOO, and if land values increased at the same rate in the next 20 years, this figure would be far short of the real value. The applicants’ mother, Mary Foley, who named her mother, Johanna O’Sullivan, as executor and trustee, left the whole of the income of her estate in equal shares to her daughters. The grandmother's will left the income in equal shares to the granddaughters, together with legacies of £I,OOO each, but by a codicil, the testatrix reduced the legacies to £SOO and only sufficient income to make up the revenue from their mother’s estate to £4 weekly to each of the girls until a year after marriage. NECESSITY TO MARRY Counsel said that he wanted to extricate the applicants from the financial necessity to marry. The driving force of the grandmother’s will seemed to be to force the girls to marry, and, however much the grandmother may have thought that a desirable end at the time the will was made, it seemed unfortunate that this financial restriction should have been applied. Counsel suggested that there was an intestacy concerning the income that accumulated from the time the girls attained their majority until they married. £1,500 WANTED Mr. Leary stated that the sisters desired the Court to make advances of £1,500 each out of the capital of their mother’s estate for the purpose of permitting them to travel, and to extend their musical and dramatic training by study abroad. To the present, advances of £I,OOO each had been made out of the estate. (Proceeding!