Property

Prevention of Benefit from Homicide

In this 2015 report, the Law Reform Commission recommends comprehensive legislative reform to implement the general principle that a person should be prevented from benefitting from his or her wrongdoing, especially an act of homicide, and that no cause of action should arise from one’s own wrongful act. 

This is to ensure that the principles are applied not only under succession law but also to prevent an offender benefitting in any other context, whether under a joint tenancy or, for example, a life insurance policy or a pension. 

Summary of Recommendations:

Recommended amendment of Civil Liability Act 1961 to prevent person who commits murder, attempted murder or manslaughter obtaining benefit from any property of the victim, whether in the victim's estate or in any other property (including in joint tenancy, insurance or pension).

The Report recommends that the current law should be reformed, including where it applies to a joint tenant who kills his or her spouse who was also a joint tenant at the time of death, which arose in the High Court in 2011 in Cawley v Lillis and in the Circuit Court with O’Brien v McCann in 1998.

The Report recommends that legislation should be enacted to provide that an offender who commits murder, attempted murder or manslaughter should be precluded from obtaining the benefit of the right of survivorship; that the legal and beneficial interests in the property held under the joint tenancy between the victim and the offender should be deemed severed from the date when such an offence was committed; that pending any court case, the legal title in the property is to held in trust and subject to the respective beneficial interests of the victim and the offender; and that it is to be presumed (subject to the recommendations set out below) that the victim holds at least half of the interest in the property. 

https://publications.lawreform.ie/Portal/External/en-GB/RecordView/Index/37527

In the 2023 report : Study on Familicide & Domestic and Family Violence Death Reviews

7.3.14.7 : There is an element of premeditation in the commission of many crimes. In a relationship where coercive control is present, there is often a perpetrator intent to control the victim’s finances and property. It is conceivable that such a desire to control could extend to actions that disinherit the victim or his or her heirs.