APPEAL ALLOWED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19249, 15 February 1937, Page 5

APPEAL ALLOWED

HEIR-AT-LAW CASE PRIVY COUNCIL HEARING LONDON, Feb. 12. The Judicial Committee of tlie Privy Council lias allowed the appeal of Maeleay versus Treadwell from the New Zealand Court of Appeal.

John Maeleay, a Wanganui farmer, after an inquiry into the operation of the Administration Act of 3STD, made a will whereby, after dispositions in favour of his brother Alexander and his nephew John, he directed the truslees to hold all his real estate at the expiration of 21 years after the decease of the survivor of his brother and nephew, and to convey the whole of the real estate absolutely to the “heir-at-law.”

In New Zealand the effec’t of the Real Estate Descent Act (1574) and the Administration Act (1579) was, in eases of intestacy, to establish a new rule of succession to real estate and to provide that the next-to-kin should be entitled instead of the “heir-at-law.” The question which the Court of Appeal in New Zealand had to decide was whether the real estate of the testator should go to the next-to-kin or should go to the “heir-at-law,” assuming that the law of succession had never been altered in New Zealand. The case was heard in the Court of Appeal in March, 1935, the Bench consisting of the Chief" Justice, Sir Michael Myers, and Justices Reed, Smith, Johnston and Fair. A majority of the Court, comprising Justices Smith, Johnston and Fair, held that for the purposes of the will, the nex.t-to-kin would be entitled to successions to the real estate. The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Reed dissented.

Lawyers in New Zealand never now use the term “heir-at-law” in preparation of wills, hut it is not infrequently found in wills prepared by laymen,