The High Court ruled that John McPartlan’s will was made in contemplation of his marriage to Carol Graham and was not revoked when they married in August 2019. Mr Justice Allen ordered that the will be admitted to probate.
The dispute arose on the executors’ application to prove a will Mr McPartlan made on 18 June 2019. It left his house at 31 Ascal Ribh, Artane, to his seven siblings in equal shares and the residue of his estate to Ms Graham. The judgment says the residue was worth slightly more than the house. If the will had been revoked, Ms Graham would have succeeded to the estate on intestacy.
Section 85(1) of the Succession Act 1965 provides an exception to the rule that marriage revokes a will: a will made in contemplation of that marriage is not revoked. The judge said the executors bore the burden of showing that, when Mr McPartlan made the will, he had in mind marriage to the particular person he later married. No wedding date, notice or arrangements had to be in place, and he did not have to intend that the will remain valid after the marriage.
The court considered evidence of the couple’s engagement in 2011 and Mr McPartlan’s plans to marry Ms Graham. In a letter to his solicitor in May 2019, he said he hoped and expected to marry her the following April. He bought a wedding ring the next day. The solicitor’s note of a later meeting recorded advice that the will would become invalid after marriage. The judge said that advice did not determine whether the marriage was in contemplation when the will was made.
Ms Graham’s evidence was that they had not agreed to marry before Mr McPartlan received a terminal diagnosis on 30 July 2019. She said she did not want to marry in those circumstances, and that they began arranging the marriage the next day. The couple married at St Francis Hospice on 8 August 2019, after a Circuit Court order dispensed with the notice requirement.
The judge concluded that the evidence clearly established that the June will was made in contemplation of Mr McPartlan’s marriage to Ms Graham. The judgment records that the court would hear counsel on costs; the judge gave a provisional view that the executors’ costs should be paid from the estate.