Effect of marriage, divorce, etc.
Effect of marriage
12.—(1) Subject to paragraphs (2) to (4), a will is revoked by the testator’s marriage.
(2) A disposition in a will in exercise of a power of appointment takes effect notwithstanding the testator’s subsequent marriage unless the property so appointed would in default of appointment pass to his personal representatives.
(3) Where it appears from a will that at the time it was made the testator was expecting to be married to a particular person and that he intended that the will should not be revoked by the marriage, the will is not revoked by his marriage to that person.
(4) Where it appears from a will that at the time it was made the testator was expecting to be married to a particular person and that he intended that a gift in the will should not be revoked by his marriage to that person—
(a)that gift takes effect notwithstanding the marriage; and
(b)any other gift in the will takes effect also, unless it appears from the will that the testator intended the gift to be revoked by the marriage.
Effect of dissolution or annulment of marriage
13.—(1) Where, after a testator has made a will, his marriage is dissolved or annulled—
(a)provisions of the will appointing executors or trustees or conferring a power of appointment, if they appoint or confer the power on the former spouse, take effect as if the former spouse had died on the date on which the marriage is dissolved or annulled, and
(b)except as provided in paragraph (2), any property comprising or included in a gift to the former spouse passes as if the former spouse had died on that date.
(2) Where property comprising or included in a gift to the former spouse is a share of residue, the will takes effect as if the gift of the residue were to the other person or persons entitled thereto (and, if more than one, in such shares as to preserve the ratio of their former shares), to the exclusion of the former spouse.
(3) Paragraphs (1) and (2) are subject to any contrary intention appearing from the will.
(4) Paragraph (1)(b) is without prejudice to any rights of the former spouse to apply for financial provision under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) (Northern Ireland) Order 1979(1).
(5) In this Article, “dissolved or annulled” means—
(a)dissolved by a decree of divorce or annulled by a decree of nullity of marriage granted under the law of any part of the United Kingdom or the Channel Islands or under the law of the Isle of Man, or
(b)dissolved or annulled in any country or territory outside the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man by a divorce or annulment which is entitled to be recognised as valid by the law of Northern Ireland;
and “the former spouse” means the person whose marriage with the testator was so dissolved or annulled.