Module 5

Gifts and interpretation: specific, general, demonstrative and residuary gifts, ademption, lapse and abatement, class gifts, reading a will and rectification

A valid will is only the start. Wills are written years before the death, by people who cannot know what will happen: the flat is sold, the niece dies first, the debts are bigger than expected, the word ‘family’ turns out to be ambiguous. Much of the law of wills is about what happens to a gift when the world changes between signing and death, and about how a court reads the words when the family disagrees about what they mean. This module teaches the vocabulary of gifts, the three ways a gift fails (ademption, lapse and abatement), the problems of class gifts and conditions, and the rules for reading a will and correcting its mistakes. These are the doctrines that most often turn up in examinations, because each can be tested with a short and tricky set of facts.

General education on the law of wills and succession, using invented people and estates. It states common principles in simplified form and does not describe any one country’s law, which differs and changes; rules on wills, intestacy, family claims and probate are strict and local. It is not legal advice. Consult a qualified lawyer in the place that matters.