Concerning the Bequest of a Third of the Estates.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Hughes, Thomas Patrick
If a person leave a third of his property to one man and a third to another, and the heirs refuse their consent to the execution of the whole, it is then restricted to one third.
If a person bequeath the third of his estate to one, and then a sixth of it to another, and the heirs refuse their consent, in that case one-third of his estate is divided into three shares, of which two are given to the legatee of the third and one to the legatee of the sixth.
A bequest of a son’s portion of inheritance is void, but not the bequest of an equivalent to it. For example: If a person say, “I bequeath my son’s portion,” such a bequest is null; but the bequest will be valid if he say, “I bequeath an equivalent to my son’s portion.”
A bequest of a “portion” of the estate is executed to the extent of the smallest portion inherited from it, and a bequest of “part of the estate,” undefined, may be construed to apply to any part.
A person bequeathing a third of any particular property, if two-thirds of it be lost, and the remainder come within a third of the testator’s estate, the legatee is entitled to the whole of such remainder; and a bequest of “the third of” an article, part of which is afterwards destroyed, holds with respect to a third of the remainder.
A legacy of money must be paid in full with the property in hand, although all the rest of the estate should be expended in debts.
A legacy left to two persons, one of them being at that time dead, goes entire to the living legatee.
A legacy being bequeathed to two persons indefinitely, if one of them die, a moiety of it only goes to the other.
A bequest made by a poor man is of force if he afterwards become rich.
A bequest of any article, not existing in the possession or disposal of the testator at his decease, is null, unless it was referred to his property, in which case it must be discharged by a payment of the value.
An acknowledgment of debt, upon a death-bed, is efficient to the extent of a third of the estate.
Any accident occasioning uncertainty with respect to the legatees, annuls the bequest.
An heir, after partition of the estate, acknowledging a bequest in favour of another, must pay the acknowledged legatee his proportion of such bequest.