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The vindictive beneficiary

05 August 2016 / Rawdon Crozier
Issue: 7710 / Categories: Features , Wills & Probate
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Rawdon Crozier reflects on mixed messages & disclaimer by conduct

  • Conflicting lines of authority about what is required for a disclaimer to become irrevocable & therefore effective.
  • What is the requisite intention for disclaimer?

The story of the “dog in a manger”, is, like almost every other fable, generally credited to Aesop and, like almost every other fable, has a plot of the utmost simplicity: a dog climbs into a mangerful of hay and guards it fiercely against the cows, goats, horses and any other animal that might benefit from eating its contents. When a horse, reasonably, points out that the dog only eats meat and asks why the dog is guarding the hay so vigorously, the dog replies: “So no-one else can eat it.”

Sometimes a beneficiary under a will or on an intestacy can behave like the dog of the fable—the “Fable of the vindictive beneficiary” might run as follows:

  • An unhappy family consisted of a mother, two children and a husband, step-father to the children, whom he did not like.
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