Residuary Gifts: Intention not precedent

Spurling v Broadhurst confirms the court’s current approach in placing emphasis on the intention of the testator rather than strict rules of will construction. Daisy Boulter investigates ‘The court in Spurling took a broad range of evidence into account, including the testator’s characteristics, in deciding how to construe the gift in remainder clause.’ In Spurling …
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Spurling & anr v Broadhurst & ors [2012] EWHC 2883 (Ch)

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | December 2012 #125

Ronald Anthony Allcroft Gibbons (the testator), who had no family, made a handwritten will on 29 December 2010 by which he appointed the claimants as his executors and gave them his residuary estate ‘to hold on trust to pay my debts, taxes and testamentary expenses and pay the residue to Veronica Broadhurst, Ann Foden, the living grandchildren of Veronica Broadhurst, and David Spurling in equal shares’. The testator died the following year and the claimants, who considered the terms of the residuary gift to be ambiguous, sought a declaration as to its construction. The third ...