Nuncupative Will - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition nuncupative-will

Definition :

Nuncupative Will, a verbal testament depending merely upon oral evidence, being declared by the testator in extremis before a sufficient number of witnesses and after wards reduced to writing, 2 Bl. Com. 500.

The (English) Statute of Frauds, 29, Car. 2, c. 3, restricted nuncupative wills, except when made by mariners at sea, and soldiers in actual service. Nuncupative wills are abolished by the (English) Wills Act, 1837, s. 9, but with a proviso by s. 11 that any soldier being in actual military service, or any marine or seaman being at sea, may dispose of his personal estate, as he might have done before the making of this Act. A will made by a soldier under s. 11 accordingly requires no attestation, and s. 15, avoiding gifts to attesting witnesses, has no application to such a will [Re Limond, (1915) 2 Ch 240]. The Wills (Soldiers and Sailors) Act, 1918, slightly enlarges the class of persons to whom s. 11 applies (s. 2), and extends the right to make wills, without the formalities requires by the Act of 1837, to real property in the case of persons within this class (s. 3). See the (English) Navy and Marines (Wills) Act, 1865, 1897, and 1914, as to the disposal of money and effects under the control of the Admiralty which belonged to certain classes of deceased members of the Royal Navy and Marines.