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Priviledge Wills and Testamentry Formalities: A Time to Die?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 1999
Abstract
This article examines the doctrine of privileged wills, under section 11 of the Wills Act 1837, which permits soldiers in “actual military service” and sailors “at sea” to make testamentary dispositions of their property in any convenient form, rather than in the strict form dictated for civilian wills by section 9 of the same Act. The question raised is whether the continued existence of this privilege can really be justified in a modern society where service and marine personnel are generally as well educated and as well advised as civilian testators. To answer this, the article considers the principal benefits and detriments of the formal requirements imposed by section 9, and tries to identify any way in which the balance of these benefits and detriments might differ for privileged testators. The conclusion reached is that there is no principled justification which can be made out for retaining section 11 in its present form. Instead, the only options which are theoretically supportable are either to extend the scope of the present doctrine considerably (thought by many commentators to be indesirable) or to abolish it.
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References
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