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[2026] NSWSC 1077
Supreme Court of NSW
2026-08-31
Kunc J
Original judgment source is linked above.
Source: NSW Caselaw (www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au). Converted to plain text by ZoeLaw. Not the official version.
Medium Neutral Citation: Prangemeier v Prangemeier [2026] NSWSC 1077
Hearing dates: 31 August 2026
Date of orders: 31 August 2026
Decision date: 31 August 2026
Jurisdiction: Equity
Before: Kunc J
Decision: Declarations as to administration made including to the effect that estate to be administered on basis that first defendant predeceased the testator
Catchwords: SUCCESSION — Forfeiture under public policy rule — Testator murdered by beneficiary — Gift over as if beneficiary predeceased testator
Cases Cited: Helton v Allen (1940) 63 CLR 691
Rasmanis v Jurewitsch [1970] 1 NSWR 650
Category: Principal judgment
Parties: Benjamin Prangemeier (Plaintiff)
Hans Prangemeier (First Defendant)
Tracy Yap Pty Ltd t/as Tracy Yap Realty (Second Defendant)
Representation: Counsel: Mr C Birtles with Ms C Angus (Plaintiff)
Solicitors: Matthews Folbigg (Plaintiff)
File Number(s): 2025/00378905
The plaintiff is the executor of the estate of the late Sabine Edith Prangemeier (the deceased). These proceedings are brought for declaratory relief that relies on the forfeiture rule and its effect on the estate and its administration. Mr C Birtles of Counsel appeared with Ms C Angus of counsel for the plaintiff.
As the Court finds below, the deceased was murdered by her former husband, Mr Hans Prangemeier (the ). For the reasons which follow, the Court finds that the forfeiture rule applies so that the offender is to take no benefit and is to be passed over in the administration of the estate.
The second defendant is a real estate agency which is holding the proceeds of sale of one of the properties that had been jointly owned by the deceased and the offender. It has indicated, not unreasonably, that it requires a court order as to how it is to deal with those funds.
The Court is satisfied that both defendants have been properly served with these proceedings, and are on notice of them today. There has been no appearance for either of them.
Cases which rely on the forfeiture rule are inevitably tragic. This is no exception. The deceased and the offender owned three properties as joint tenants. Those properties were referred to in counsels' submissions as the McCudden Street property, the Fullers Road property, and the Loan Pine Avenue property.
In around June 2015, the deceased and the offender separated. Following their separation, the deceased moved to Germany, where two of her children were also residing. The offender moved into the Fullers Road property.
In around 2018, the deceased and the offender were involved in family law property settlement proceedings in what was then the Family Court of Australia. Those proceedings were ultimately dismissed by that Court on its own motion on 22 July 2022. The family law proceedings were the catalyst for what followed.
On 13 July 2018, the offender sold the Lone Pine Avenue property by using a power of attorney given to him some years before by the deceased. On 17 August 2018, he sold the Fullers Road property, again using his position as the deceased's attorney. The proceeds of sale of the Fullers Road property were deposited into the trust account of the second defendant. On 24 September 2018, having become aware of the sales being undertaken by the offender, the deceased through her solicitor lodged a caveat over the McCudden Street property. On 5 November 2018, the offender fatally stabbed the deceased in the German city of Stuttgart.
Because this is a civil proceeding, the Court must be satisfied on the civil standard - the balance of probabilities - that the offender unlawfully killed the deceased. In reaching a state of actual satisfaction of that fact, the Court must take into account the seriousness of the allegation.
The evidence proves that the offender was convicted of murder by a German court. This Court has in evidence certified translations of the certificate of conviction and judgment of the Landgericht Stuttgart (District Court Stuttgart).
It is not necessary in these proceedings to revisit the question of what beyond the fact of the conviction a certificate of conviction (whether of an Australian or foreign court) will prove under Australian law. That is because, in this case, the Court has evidence of unequivocal admissions by the offender of his crime. At least two of those admissions appear in correspondence from the offender to his adult children. These were in German, but the Court was provided with certified translations.
In one piece of correspondence the offender writes:
"You know what, after the deed and after the interrogation that was conducted by two police officers, I said to them both that it's the divorce laws that are responsible for me having committed this crime."
"To summarise these two points I have to say that the line of argument used in the Court's judgment has gravely damaged my confidence in the legal system here. I killed my wife. That's something that I am not trivialising at all."
Taking into account the certificate of conviction, but primarily relying upon the admissions to which I have referred, I am actually satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the offender unlawfully killed the deceased and find accordingly. It follows from that finding that the forfeiture rule of public policy considered by the High Court of Australia in Helton v Allen (1940) 63 CLR 691 applies to this case.
In Helton, Mr Helton was convicted of murder. His conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered. He was acquitted on the retrial. There was then a civil trial which, in accordance with the common practice of the time, was before a jury. The jury found that Mr Helton had unlawfully killed the testator under whose will he stood to benefit. The High Court held that Mr Helton’s criminal acquittal did not preclude the application of the forfeiture rule. That Court’s exposition of the relevant principles has been followed in numerous authorities. It applies to this case.
Under the deceased's will made on 31 August 2012, the deceased:
Appointed the offender and her children as her executors. The plaintiff is one of those children.
Gave the whole of her estate to the offender.
In the event that the offender did not survive her, disposed of her estate between their children in varying proportions by clause 4 of the will.
Probate of the will was granted to the plaintiff on 1 February 2023. The effect of the forfeiture rule is that the offender is disentitled from taking any interest in the estate, and is to be treated as notionally non‑existent, so that the other beneficiaries of the estate will inherit. The Court is satisfied that the estate ought now be administered as though the offender predeceased his former wife, so that the gift over under the will is enlivened, leaving only the plaintiff and his siblings as the beneficiaries of the estate.
The three properties to which I have referred were all held by the deceased and the offender as joint tenants. The effect of the forfeiture rule on property held as joint tenants was discussed by the NSW Court of Appeal in Rasmanis v Jurewitsch [1970] 1 NSWR 650 (per Wallace P, with whom Jacobs JA and Mason JA (as Sir Anthony Mason then was) agreed) at 651-652:
“…equity will require that the interest taken by the felon be held by him upon a constructive trust which will ensure that the interest be held in the same way as it would have been held if there had, on the slaying, been no enlargement of the interest of the felon.
…
Upon the basis that legal title is unaffected but that equity will interfere on grounds of public policy, the question then is how equity will so interfere in order to prevent the felon from reaping a benefit from his slaying. It may do so by determining that the slaying caused a severance of the joint tenancy in equity, or it may do so by imposing a constructive trust. Again, the constructive trust may be in favour of the victim’s estate or it may be a trust in favour of the third joint tenant. Where there are only two joint tenants there is no difference in result between severance and constructive trust…I think that the primary rule to be enforced is that the felon must not be allowed to retain any benefit flowing to him from the slaying and that he is required to hold any such benefit which flows at law upon trust for someone other than himself.”
Rasmanis has been applied on several occasions since then.
The position in relation to the McCudden Street property is straightforward. Applying the forfeiture rule and the principles to which I have just referred, notwithstanding that the offender is recognised at law as entitled to be the sole registered proprietor of the McCudden Street property by the law of survivorship, that benefit does not enure to him. Instead, he holds a half interest in the McCudden Street property on constructive trust for the estate to be distributed in accordance with clause 4 of the will.
The position in relation to the Fullers Road property and the Lone Pine Avenue property is slightly more complicated, only because those properties were sold during the deceased's lifetime by the offender as the deceased’s attorney. The evidence suggests, but it is not necessary for me to make any conclusive finding, that those sales were undertaken without the knowledge of the deceased.
I do not propose to set out Mr Birtles' and Ms Angus' thorough and interesting submissions dealing with the effect on a joint tenancy of a mere sale of the property. While, in my respectful opinion, the better view is that the mere sale of a property held as joint tenants does not sever the joint tenancy, so that the joint owners obtain a joint interest in the proceeds, it is not necessary for me to explore that question further. That is because, however the matter is looked at, half of the proceeds of sale of those two properties are held on constructive trust for the estate.
If, for some reason, the view were to be taken that the joint tenancy in relation to those two properties was not severed before the death of the deceased, and applying the principles in Rasmanis, the effect of the forfeiture rule is that upon the unlawful killing the joint tenancy is severed, and half of the proceeds of sale of the properties are held on constructive trust for the estate. Alternatively, even if the joint tenancy was severed before the death of the deceased, either by the sale of the properties or by the proceeds of the sale of the Lone Pine Avenue property being deposited into the offender’s bank account, the severance converts the entitlement to a proportionate share held as a tenant in common.
The Court is satisfied that a proper basis has been demonstrated on the evidence to make the declarations and consequential orders which are sought to enable the estate to obtain the benefit of the three properties, and otherwise to be administered on the basis of the application of the forfeiture rule to the exclusion of the offender.
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Prangemeier
Prangemeier
(1940) 63 CLR 691