There exists a special consideration sufficient to deny a gift in a will the character of ‘pure bounty’ is where the gift by will has a particular purpose identified in the will itself. The language may show that the gift is intended to meet a particular moral obligation. In such circumstances an arlier gift may adeem the gift in the will. A gift may be deemed a portion ‘where the donor is a parent or in loco parentis …’ and ‘When a testator gives a legacy to a child, or to any other person towards whom he has taken on himself parental obligations, and afterwards makes a gift or enters into a binding contract in his lifetime in favour of the same legatee, then (unless there be distinctions between the nature and conditions of the two gifts, of a kind not in this case material) there is a presumption prima facie that both gifts were made to fulfil the same natural or moral obligation of providing for the legatee; and consequently that the gift inter vivos is either wholly or in part a substitution for, or an ‘ademption’ of, the legacy.’
Otherwise Pollock v Worrall
Lord Selbome LC
(1885) 28 Ch D 552, [1885] UKLawRpCh 84
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – In Re the Estate of Marjorie Langdon Cameron (Deceased); Peter David Phillips v Donald Cameron and Others ChD 24-Mar-1999
One of the testatrix’s children was thought to be profligate, and had failed to maintain his own son. Acting under an enduring power of attorney, the testatrix’s attorneys made a substantial gift in establishing an educational trust for that son’s . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Wills and Probate
Updated: 24 January 2022; Ref: scu.194471