4.  The applicant was born in 1951 and lives in Vila Nova de Famalicão.
5.  On 17 September 2003 he instituted inventory proceedings (processo de inventário) before the Vila Nova de Famalicão Court in order to obtain the division of the property of his great-uncle, J.C., who died in 1944.
6.  On 26 November 2003 the administrator of the estate (cabeça-de-casal) gave statements (declarações da cabeça-de-casal) during the proceedings and on 27 January 2004 she identified at least fifty people as being J.C.’s heirs.
7.  On 13 February and 13 June 2004 two additional groups of heirs sought to intervene in the proceedings as parties. The applicant was notified of these requests on 23 May 2005.
8.  On 21 April 2004 the administrator of the estate submitted a list of J.C.’s assets (relação de bens) to the case-file; the applicant was notified of this on 20 September 2004.
9.  On 20 June 2006 the court requested the administrator of the estate to make additional statements. Between that date and 3 September 2007 contact information with regard to some of the heirs was submitted by the administrator of the estate, the heirs who had sought to intervene in the proceedings were granted leave to do so (see paragraph 7 above), and land registry certificates were requested and added to the case-file.
10.  On 18 February 2008 the company J.M.C. (hereinafter “J.M.C.”) lodged a request to be allowed to intervene in the proceedings.
11.  Following some difficulties in summoning the heirs (many of the letters sent had been returned undelivered to the court), on 20 May 2009 the court managed to summon all heirs.
12.  On 22 June 2009 the parties requested that a time-limit be set for the valuation of the property included in the inventory.
13.  On 24 June 2009 the administrator of the estate requested permission to step down from his post for health reasons. On 15 October 2009 the court granted her request and appointed a new administrator of the estate.
14.  On 24 March 2010 a meeting of the parties (conferência de interessados) took place. The court admitted J.M.C. as a party to the proceedings and appointed an expert to value the immovable property left by J.C. The meeting was postponed pending the expert’s report.
15.  On 7 June 2010, after requesting an extension of the initial thirty-day time-limit, the expert submitted his report.
16.  After J.M.C. criticised the expert’s report, on 9 March 2011 the expert submitted a second report.
17.  On 21 March 2012 the expert was asked by the court to give information about the value of the properties, which he did on 9 May 2012.
18.  Between 7 January 2008 and 18 April 2013, a meeting of the parties was scheduled, re-scheduled or postponed twelve times, the last of them for an unknown date.
19.  Between 11 February 2008 and 18 April 2013 the court was informed four times of the deaths of parties to the proceedings. Procedural steps were taken to identify their heirs in order to continue the proceedings with those heirs as parties.
20.  As the letters summoning some of the newly identified heirs had been returned to the court, between 10 September 2013 and 17 December 2013 more steps were taken in order to try to summon them.
21.  On 6 February 2014 the administrator of the estate informed the court that she was unable to obtain information about the missing addresses of some of the heirs of a deceased party.
22.   The court stayed the proceedings three times (on 12 February and 13 November 2014, and on 10 September 2015), ordering that they should not continue until one or more of the parties took the initiative to submit information regarding the addresses of some of the heirs.
23.  According to the latest information received by the Court on 10 January 2016, on that date the proceedings were still pending at first instance.