Supreme Court: a will can be revoked due to a change in facts and circumstances

The fact that a testator did not anticipate a later change in their marital and family situation does not mean that this is irrelevant to the interpretation of the will. It is therefore possible that the will is interpreted as only being valid before the testator's situation changed. With this ruling, the Supreme Court overturns an earlier decision by the Court of Appeal.

In the underlying case, a testator had made a will before his marriage and the birth of his children. In it, he named his brother as his sole heir. In legal proceedings, the wife and children argued that the brother could derive no rights from the will. This would only apply if the testator was unmarried at the time of his death and left no descendants.

Relationships and circumstances
The district court agreed, but the court of appeal disagreed. According to the court, facts and circumstances after the will was made are only taken into account if they were anticipated in the will's creation. The Supreme Court has now overruled the court of appeal and ruled that when interpreting a will, attention must be paid to the relationships the will apparently intends to regulate and the circumstances under which it was made.