Who looks after the estate while a will is contested in Cyprus

In short

While a will or a grant is contested in court, the court can appoint an administrator pending suit: a person who protects and manages the estate under the court’s direction until the dispute ends, but cannot distribute it.

Klitos Platis, advocate

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A will dispute can take years, and the estate does not stop needing attention while it runs. Rents fall due, loans keep charging interest, a house and its contents stand empty, and a share in a family business waits for someone to act. Often the only people who could act are the people on opposite sides of the case.

Cyprus law has a remedy made for this. Under section 20 of the Administration of Estates Law, Cap. 189, the court can appoint an administrator pending suit, known by its Latin name as administration pendente lite. That person takes charge of the estate under the court’s direction until the dispute is decided. This article explains when the court will do it, what the administrator may and may not do, and how an application is made.

If you are the executor named in the will, our article on what an executor actually has to do in Cyprus covers the role itself. The grounds for challenging a will are in contesting a will in Cyprus.

A caveat does not manage the assets

The caveat, entered against an application for a grant, is usually the first step in a will dispute. Our page on contested estates explains how it works and why it is worth filing early.

What a caveat does not do is put anyone in charge of the property. It does not collect the rent, insure the building or answer the bank. That is the gap an administrator pending suit fills.

What section 20 allows

The power exists where proceedings about the will or the grant are already before the court. Section 20(1) of Cap. 189 applies where proceedings are pending that concern either:

the validity of the deceased’s will; or
the obtaining, annulment or revocation of a grant.

So the power is not limited to will challenges. A dispute between relatives over who should receive letters of administration on an intestacy is a dispute about obtaining a grant, and it qualifies too. In the 2025 case before the Court of Appeal, the dispute was between three children, who had filed probate actions against each other over their parents’ estates.

The court that decides is the one Cap. 189 names for estates generally: the President or a judge of the District Court of the district where the deceased had their usual or last residence in Cyprus, or the District Court of Nicosia if that is not known.

What the administrator may do, and what is kept for the court

The administrator pending suit has all the rights and powers of a general administrator, with one exception: they cannot distribute what is left of the estate. Distribution waits for the outcome, because the outcome decides who inherits. Until then, the administrator’s task is to keep the estate whole.

Within that, the administrator can do the practical work. In the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Terzian, the administrators were appointed to claim insurance money that secured a housing loan and a hire purchase, to pay off those two debts, and to take steps to recover possession of a flat that belonged to the estate. In the 2025 case, the District Court of Nicosia appointed a person who was not one of the heirs as administrator of both parents’ estates. It ordered the son to give him access to the place where the movable property was kept, which the son described as artworks and furniture, and not to obstruct him taking control of it.

The administrator acts under the court’s immediate control and its directions. Two consequences follow:

A sale of estate property is a matter for the court. When the son in the 2025 case feared the administrator would dispose of the contents, the Court of Appeal answered that under section 33 of Cap. 189 that power lies with the court, and the administrator cannot dispose of estate property as he sees fit.
The administrator answers for what they do. Section 31(2) makes anyone granted administration accountable in the same way as an executor, and section 45 requires every administrator appointed by the court to file accounts of the administration.

The administrator’s pay comes from the estate, where the court allows it. Section 20(2) lets the court allow reasonable remuneration out of the estate, as it thinks fit, and in the 2025 case the Court of Appeal left the amount to the District Court to fix on the administrator’s own application.

The administrator pending suit keeps the estate whole for whoever wins. Distribution waits for the outcome, and a sale needs the court.

Who applies, and how

The application is made by someone who is already a party to the proceedings. The Supreme Court held in Terzian that the proceedings over the will or the grant must be filed first, that the application is made by any of the parties to those proceedings, and that it is served on the other side.

The Court added that the application need not be lodged as an interim application inside the action itself. What is required is that proceedings concerning the estate are pending. In Terzian they were: the deceased’s brother and mother had filed a caveat and an action claiming letters of administration, and the widow and the guardian of his minor daughter, who contested the will, then applied under section 20.

As for who is appointed, the Supreme Court said that the administrator pending suit, who stands in the position of a receiver of the estate, should ideally be a neutral person with no leaning towards either side. That is not an absolute rule. A person involved in the case may be appointed if the court thinks it desirable, and in Terzian the applicants themselves were. In the 2025 case the District Court appointed a third person, over the objection of the son, who said he held the keys and had managed the building for decades.

The appointment is tied to the dispute. In the 2025 case it was made until a permanent administrator is appointed. The District Court of Paphos, in a 2022 decision, described the appointment as limited in time and ending when the action ends, any appeal included.

What the court needs to see

The court appoints an administrator pending suit where special cause is shown, and protecting and preserving the estate is the example the Supreme Court gave. The cause has to be shown with specifics.

Terzian shows the line clearly. The trial court granted the application for the purposes the applicants could prove: two loans secured by insurance policies, with the banks demanding repayment and interest running. It refused a general request to take whatever measures might be needed to protect and preserve the estate, and it refused a claim about company shares said to have been transferred days before the death, because that claim was general and vague. The Supreme Court did not disturb either refusal.

The same judgment answers a question families often ask: should one of us simply pay the estate’s debts and sort it out later? Heirs have no obligation to pay the estate’s debts out of their own pocket, the Supreme Court said, even if they could later recover the money from the estate. So the fact that a relative could pay is no answer to an application.

So the strongest application names each asset and what is happening to it: the rent that is not being collected, the loan statement showing arrears, the insurance that lapses next month, the empty house. Each one becomes a power the court can grant.

When one asset is in danger: an interim order

Sometimes the risk is a single act, such as a transfer of land or a withdrawal from an account. For that, the general power of the civil courts to make interim orders is there too: section 32 of the Courts of Justice Law, Law 14/1960, lets the court issue an interim injunction, or appoint a receiver, where it considers that just or convenient.

The section sets three conditions before an interim order is made:

there is a serious question to be tried;
there is a probability that the applicant is entitled to relief; and
without the order it will be difficult or impossible to do complete justice later.

The order can be made on terms, and varied or set aside for good cause. Section 32(3) also lets the court order the applicant to compensate the other side for the expense and harm an order caused, where it was based on insufficient grounds or the claim fails without a probable basis. That is a reason to apply on evidence, asset by asset, and to ask only for what the evidence supports.

What this means in practice

If you are in a will or grant dispute and the estate is drifting, you do not have to wait for the judgment to protect it. The court can put someone in charge of the property now, under its own supervision.

Start with a list. For each asset, write down what it is, who holds it, and what is going wrong: unpaid rent, a loan in arrears, an uninsured building, contents nobody is checking. Gather the documents that prove it. That list is the application, and it is what separates an appointment from a refusal.

Check that the proceedings are on file. Section 20 works only once proceedings about the will or the grant are pending. If the dispute has not yet reached court, the first question is what has to be filed so that the court has the power.

Ask for powers that match the problems: to collect these rents, to pay this loan, to insure and secure this property, to take possession of these contents. A precise request is easier to grant and easier to supervise.

Think about who should hold the role. A neutral person is the court’s ideal, and proposing one can make the appointment easier for both sides to accept. The court may allow the administrator reasonable remuneration out of the estate, so the cost is met from the estate as the court allows.

If you are the relative holding the keys, the appointment does not decide the dispute. The administrator cannot distribute, and cannot sell without the court. Working with the administrator keeps the estate intact for whoever the court decides is entitled to it.

Our pages on contested estates and on estate administration in Cyprus set out how these disputes and administrations are run from start to finish.

Sources

Klitos Platis

Advocate, Partner

Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Cyprus
Published 20 October 2026

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