PECULIAR WILL CASE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 4981, 3 June 1903, Page 3

PECULIAR WILL CASE.

A HUSBAND WHO CHANGED HIS MIND. Yesterday tho Chief Justice gave judgment in tho matter c-f an application. re the will of i I)is Harcourt Peat, deceased, that probate should bo issued to the widow, who was appointed solo executrix. Tho deceased was living in New Zca-i land, and married here. In 1890 ho’ made a will leaving his property to his wife absolutely, and appointing her executrix. On .the Bth May, 1893, while still in New Zealand, ho purported to cancel his will by .running Iris pen through his name, striking out the will by crossing it with pen-lines, striking out tho witnesses’ names so that they could be indistinctly road, aind writing in three different places, " Cancelled,by W. H. Peat.” He also wrote in his own hand on the margin, “I, leave everything to my children only. Willis Harcourt Peat, 1893.” In 1897 he left New Zealand for the Cape erf Good Hope, and- died at Kimberley on the 11th March, 1900. Ths High Court of Griqualaud granted probate of tho wj.prds.jn the margin as being a heliograph will. Application was now made for probate of the first will. His Honor said there was no doubt that the will had not, in accordance with section 20 of the Wills Act, been * properly revoked. It was not burned, torn, or otherwise destroyed; But tlie question was —was New Zealand his domicile? There was no evidence about his domicile further than that he was in New Zealand apparently for many years, and went to Cape Colony. He had been in Capo Colony about throe j'eara, and it appeared that he did not intend to return. Tho fact that tho High Court where he died had assumed that ho was domiciled there, and that there was no evidence before him

(tho Chief Justice) that his place of

residence and where he died was not • his domicile, prevented him; holding that the heliograph will was not a revocation of his first will. If the testator’s domicile was in Cape Colony, a heliograph will was a good, tertamontary instrument, and ho did not see what jurisdiction lie had to interfere with the decision of the High Court of Griqualand. Ho must, therefore, refuse the application. Mr Treadwell appeared for the executrix.