Re Sinclair
Before the law was changed, a gift over in a will to take effect if the testator's former wife predeceased him did not take effect where the gift to her lapsed because of divorce, since she had not in fact predeceased him.
Facts
Mr Sinclair made a will leaving his estate to his wife, but providing that if she should predecease him, or survive him by less than a month, the estate should go to a charity. He and his wife were later divorced, but he did not change his will. Under section 18A of the Wills Act 1837, as it then stood, the gift to his former wife lapsed on divorce. The question was whether the charity took the estate under the gift over.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal held that the gift over did not take effect, because the condition, that the wife should predecease the testator, had not been fulfilled, and section 18A provided that the gift to the former spouse should lapse, not that she should be treated as having predeceased him. The estate therefore passed on intestacy. The result was criticised, and the Law Reform (Succession) Act 1995 amended section 18A, so that a former spouse is now treated as having died on the date of the divorce, so that gifts over take effect.
Related cases on revocation, construction and failure of gifts
- Re Adams [1990] Ch 601
- Cheese v Lovejoy (1877) 2 PD 251
- Re Cleaver [1981] 1 WLR 939
- Gill v Gill [1909] P 157
- Re Goodchild [1997] 1 WLR 1216
- Healey v Brown [2002] EWHC 1405 (Ch), [2002] WTLR 849
- Re Jones [1976] Ch 200
- Kell v Charmer (1856) 23 Beav 195
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