QUICK FACTS
SCENARIO
During your lifetime, you bought a car. You save money every month from your salary and put it into two bank accounts. After acquiring a piece of land, you built a three-bedroom house and are the sole owner by way of transport. Upon your death, your wish is to give the house to your wife and two children, the car to your younger brother, and the money in the two bank accounts to your parents and siblings.
What can you do to ensure that your properties are distributed as you desire upon your death?
Executing a valid will is your best option.
What is a will?
A will is “an instrument by which a person makes a disposition of his property to take effect after his [demise] and which is in its nature ambulatory and revocable during his lifetime” – Baird v Baird (1990). The person who makes the valid will is known as the testator or testatrix.
Important characteristics of a will
- A will can be revoked at any time during the testator’s lifetime. It can be revoked by a revocation clause in a new will, ‘revoking all previous wills and codicils.’ The subsequent marriage of the testator can also revoke a will. It means that when a testator makes a will and gets married afterward, the will is automatically revoked.
- A will takes effect on the death of the testator. It, therefore, means that a will has no legal effect until the testator dies, and a beneficiary only has a hope that the said disposition will be transferred to him when the testator dies since the testator can revoke the will at any time. If a beneficiary dies before the testator, their share will lapse.
- A will is ambulatory. It speaks from the death of the testator. As such, during his lifetime, a testator is capable of selling or disposing of anything he may have devised under the will, which will in no way affect the will’s validity.
- A will can also deal with property acquired by the testator after the date on which it was made, provided that the testator owned it at his death by way of a residuary clause.
- Dispositions made under a will are not limited to land. A person may dispose of anything that he owns under a will. This may include money, shares, vehicles, jewelry, art, and personal artifacts. The choice can also concern matters such as: appointing executors of his will, appointing persons as guardians of their minor children, paying taxes and any outstanding debts, and even directions for funeral arrangements.
