Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs “She has persistently ignored the legal process in these proceedings. What is to be done?” Slattery said in his decision.LoadingHe said it was a “reasonable inference” she had “formed the view that it is to her advantage to continue to ignore the court so that she can occupy the Cremorne property”.“The court’s authority cannot be ignored any longer,” he said.After another failure to appear, Slattery issued a warrant for her arrest “to bring her to court to require her to answer the court’s process in person and engage with the looming future issue that she may be removed from the Cremorne property”. She appeared in court in late February, and the judge thanked “the sheriff and police involved in the execution of that warrant”.He said a warrant was preferable to making an order immediately granting possession of the property to the administrator because the sister living in the home was “plainly attached” to it, and it was “desirable that she either vacates it or deals with it according to a timetable with which she is familiar”.“Being brought to court forcibly, confronting though it may be, will give her a chance to organise herself and will reduce the even more traumatic effect if she is later suddenly removed from the Cremorne property.”The sister ultimately agreed to vacate the property by April 4, and Slattery made orders about artworks and photographs in the home. The administrator will take possession and sell the house.Turnbull Hill Lawyers partner Adrian Corbould, an accredited specialist in wills and estates law, said he would see about three or four cases a year involving a family member refusing to leave a property, but it was rare to see a case “going this far”.“If people did this regularly it would be absolute mayhem,” he said. “Ultimately, she has cooperated, but it’s taken a lot of work.”He said the legal costs related to this issue alone would have been in the “low tens of thousands in back and forth, [court] appearances, mentions”, and those fees would come out of the estate.While this estate included a multimillion-dollar home, Corbould noted legal costs could end up consuming a significant proportion of smaller estates. Most disputes that did not attract headlines involved “ordinary people just trying to get by”.He said the judge who presided over the case took great care to minimise the trauma.“It’s a civil jurisdiction [rather than a criminal case], so it’s very polite,” he said. “These are cases between people. It’s not an offence to society that someone doesn’t get out of a house that Mum part left them.”In this case, the mother had appointed the sisters as joint executors. Eventually, the sister who was not living at the home applied to the court in 2023 for an independent administrator to be appointed instead.Corbould said independent administrators could help resolve disputes because they were experts in the field and “dispassionate about the outcome”.“Judges get lawyers involved to try to be the middle person,” he said.Family feudThe vast majority of wills do not culminate in a court fight.In 2023, 30,692 uncontested probate applications were filed in the NSW Supreme Court.Probate is a court order confirming a will is valid and authorising the executor(s) to distribute the estate according to the will.In the same year, 418 contested probate cases were filed in court, up from 310 in 2019. A further 1,064 family provision claims were filed in 2023, up from 878 from 2019.Family provision claims allow spouses and children, among others, to seek an order giving them a greater share of a deceased’s estate if inadequate provision has been made for them in a will.
