When a testator has died, their will speaks for them — but the words on the page are not always clear. Items may have changed, beneficiaries may have died, descriptions may fit two people or none, and a drafter may have got the wording wrong. As a solicitor administering an estate, you need to know how to read a will, when its meaning can be clarified or corrected, and what happens when a gift simply cannot take effect. Getting this right decides who inherits and protects you from getting it wrong.
This lesson builds that skill step by step:
- Principles of Construction — how the court finds the testator's intention from the words used, and when a will speaks from death.
- Evidence: Armchair Principle and Extrinsic Evidence — how surrounding circumstances and outside evidence are used to resolve unclear wording.
- Rectification under s.20 — when the words themselves can be changed to reflect what the testator really meant.
- Uncertainty and Types of Legacy — when a gift is too vague to stand, and how specific, general, and demonstrative legacies differ.
- Failure of Gifts — the reasons a gift can fail, and the rules that may save it or send it elsewhere.
- Class Gifts — how gifts to a group work and when the group closes.