TWENTY-FIVE years after the death of their father, two locally-born sons of former Kings Hotel owner Robert "Bob" Amos have finally been granted the right to administer what's left of his estate.
This after the High Court in Suva granted permission for Vernon and Anthony Amos' grant to be sealed by the Registry of the Court ù effectively shutting out the Public Trustee's office's attempts to continue to make decisions over the estate.
The Public Trustee's office had placed a caveat over a property in the estate, which had prevented the Amos' sons from taking control of the estate.
High Court judge Justice William Calanchini said that caveat ceased to have effect when the applicants filed an affidavit of service on June 25, 2009.
But when the Amos sons attempted to seal the grant of Letters of Administration with the Registry, they were refused.
"The Registry staff did not appreciate that, as a result of the documents filed by the Applicants under Rule 44 and in the absence of an appearance or a summons filed by the caveator, the caveat was removed with immediate effect," Justice Calachini said.
He said the rules provided for a process that "does not require Court proceedings".
Justice Calachini said the applicants were then "compelled to seek removal of the caveat" in court.
In his judgment, he said the applicants (Amos' sons) were the only beneficiaries of the Amos estate and were over 21 years old.
Justice Calanchini said when the Public Trustee was granted Letters of Administration over the Amos estate in 1986, it was "a grant limited in time".
"It was limited in the sense that it was a grant for the duration of the imprisonment of the deceased's wife," he said.
He said the initial grant to the Public Trustee was continued by the Court of Appeal but "also on a limited basis".
"This time the limitation was until Mr Kirk applied for Probate of the Will. Then the Court (per the Master) made the orders granting Letters of Administration (with Will annexed) to the Applicants and replacing Mr Kirk as executor," he said.
"At that point the grant to the Public Trustee ceased to have effect and section 9 of the Act operated in favour of the Applicants. As the Public Trustee was no longer the Administrator and was not a beneficiary under the Will, it no longer had an interest in the estate."
Justice Calanchini also dismissed the Public Trustee's application to sell a Toorak property under the estate. "The Public Trustee has been divested of its interest in the property since its Grant of Letters had ceased as a result of the Master's Orders made in June 2008."